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LESTER 

COURHAMD 
ROGERS 



LIBRARY^Of CONGRESS. 

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UNITED ST.iTES OF AMERICA. 




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THE GOLDEN LINK 



AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



/ 



LESTER COURTLAND ROGERS 



r>, o"" co/v.< 



"jljK 28 1895 



OF 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE CHI;NN 

1895 




<ii.<^t^ 



-K 



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^3 



Copyright, 1895, 
Bv LESTER COURTLAND ROGERS. 

All rights reserved. 



Press of Holt Brothers, 
17 TO 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 



§t&,mtm 



Kind Reader : 

The poems in this little book 
Are snowflakes from green branches shook ; 
And if perchance they please you, then 
The winds may shake the boughs again. 

L. C. R. 

Alfred, N. Y. 



CONTENTS 



THE GOLDEN LINK 

THE WEAVERS 

SONGS OF THE SEA 
The Surging Sea 
The Sea of Time 
Our Atlantic Seaboard 
The Restless Sea 
The Same Blue Sea 
The Watchman Asleep 
The Fishermen of Waterford 



PAGE 

3 

25 



43 
50 
56 
62 

64 
66 
69 



NATURE 
Daybreak 

The Morning Dawn 
Sunshine 
The Prairie 
My Pretty Sheep 
Birds of Autumn 
The Bird Dance 
June .... 
Forest Flowers 
St. John's River, Florida 
The Message of the Snowflakes 



75 


77 


78 


• 79 


80 


81 


82 


83 


84 


85 


87 



CONTENTS. 



PATRIOTIC 



Refrain of Freedom 
Returning the Flag 
General Sheridan's Last Ride 
Among the Stars 
Heart of Hearts 
The Fatherland 



91 
102 
104 
106 
109 
112 



HEART AND HOME 



Cor Cordium . . . . 


117 


Twilight Visions of Home 


118 


Well Spoken . . . . 


IIQ 


My Bird Has Flown . 


120 


The Phantom . . . . 


122 


She Comes Betimes 


124 


Just Fourteen . . . . 


126 


Lady Fair and True . 


127 


Troubled Heart 


128 


My Laddie .... 


129 


Those Bonnie Blue Eyes 


130 


The Mystic Face 


131 


My Father's Picture 


132 


Mother Love .... 


134 


Ho, Anni Fugentes 


136 


One Year Ago .... 


138 


My Mother's Eightieth Birthday 


140 


Mother and Son 


141 


A Lassie Dear . , . . 


142 



CONTENTS. 



Vii 



Sweet Unadilla 

The Maid with Nut-brown Hair 

An Ethereal Visitant 

The Poet Encouraged 

The Soldier's Return 



143 
145 
147 
149 

151 



RELIGIOUS 



God is Love 


157 


The Atoning Saviour . 


158 


God of the Morning Light 


159 


Land of the Living 


160 


The Sabbath 


161 


Evening ..... 


162 


Jesus, my Saviour . 


163 


Child of Peace 


164 


Angelus .... 


165 


The Path .... 


166 


Christmas Eve . . . 


167 


Godliness .... 


168 


Forgiving .... 


169 


The Bound Unbound 


171 


Genu Flecto 


174 


Nearing the Goal 


176 


What I Was, Am, and Shall Be 


178 


Working and Waiting 


180 


Before I Die 


182 


Meeting and Parting . 


184 



CONTENTS. 

The Jewish Prophet's Lament over the Fall 

OF Egypt .... 

Sabbaths Militant .... 



i86 
189 



PHILOSOPHICAL 
The Windmill 
What is Man? . 
Life .... 
Is Death an Eternal Sleep? 
Half Awake 
Man Microcosmic 
The Spider's Web, 
Mortal or Immortal 
Finisterre 



193 
194 

195 
197 
198 
201 
203 
204 
206 



MISCELLANEOUS 
Our Life 
Going, Gone 
Let me Sing 

The Poet's Invisible Friends 
The Wind Blows Bleak 
Williams College . 
Farewell, Old Year 
The Blind Poet 
MuLETTo's Dream 
The Dusty Miller of Waterford 
The Weeping Ash 



211 
212 
213 

215 
217 
220 
221 
222 
224 
229 
231 



CONTENTS. 


ix 


The English Tongue . 


234 


The Remedy 


236 


The Poet Re-reads 


237 


Sleep and Death 


238 


The Foundling 


240 


The Honest Truth and A', Sirs 


242 


My Friend and I . . . 


243 


A Moment's Doubt 


245 


A Golden Wedding 


246 


Dreamland .... 


248 


Under the Shadows 


250 


The Barter Market 


251 


Sign the Pledge 


253 


The Bells .... 


255 


The Poet's Confession 


257 


En Voyage .... 


259 


Little Lena .... 


260 


The Dream 


261 


The Human Voice 


264 


Our Mutual Friend 


266 



THE GOLDEN LINK 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Arise, O man, to meditation bent, 

And gird thyself with masterly intent. 

Now let us roam the widening fields of thought. 

And go beyond where other men have wrought ; 

Avail ourselves of vision's rapid flight. 

With reason's ray cut through the realms of night. 

Or, borne on fancy's rapid wing, to find 

Food for the soul, and wrestling for the mind. 

What sounds are these that break upon our ears ? 

This is the music of the rolling spheres. 

What see we as we ride from sun to sun, 

By stellar walks throughout the cosmos run ? 

A universe of Hnks and tenons made, 

Majors and minors run through every grade ; 

Wheels within wheels, each suited to its place 

Throughout the realms of all-embracing space, — 

All counterparts with correlates replete, 

Or find one golden hnk, and how complete ; 

'T will link the cosmos to the grand First Cause, 

Organic forms to organizing laws. 

'T will link the great Unseen to what we see. 

The past and present with what is to be, 

The here and there with that which lies between, 

As Rome to Gaul by cis and trans Alpine. 



4 THE GOLDEN LINK, 

We see in part by vision's naked glance, 

As o'er the whole the visual lines advance, 

Where, aided by the telescopic eye, 

New wonders rise, our thoughts still onward fly. 

Or, glancing down, with microscope we view 

A mimic world, and big with wonders, too. 

And reason now from known to unknown leaps, 

Or fancy leads till lost in bathic deeps ; 

Or faith strong-founded on the naked word. 

Where naught by eye or ear is seen or heard. 

Another universe of light and love unrolls, 

Beyond the realm of sense, the realm of souls : 

So real, too, to her the cosmos seems 

With worlds on worlds as but the land of dreams. 

With space so vast we scarce can comprehend 

Where it begins or where its circles end : 

Yet, to a world still on, contemptible, 

That universe, all pure, ineffable. 

Where dwells essential immortality, 

The home land of the blessed Deity; 

This universe of universes seen. 

Binds all extremities, and all between. 

Are here the answers nothing else can give ? 

The source of life, the reason why we live ? 

The reason for all other reasons given 

Of everything in earth and space and heaven? 

That golden Hnk for which all others call. 

If 't were not found, would loose these one and all 

Though 't is not seen, we seem to hear its clink. 

As just beyond the last long cosmic link. 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 5 

Shall we deny what is not known to sense ? 
With faith and hope v»-e must therefore dispense ; 
The spirit world to chaos then v/ill turn, 
To ashes more than half the cosmos burn, 
And .to ourselves we must become estranged ; 
This golden link unknown, all is deranged. 

Ten thousand chains of correlation bind 
Dust to its fellow dust, and kind to kind. 
Is there a power that holds them one and all, 
From center beam through to the outer wall ? 
Faith answers, yes, eternally he lives ; 
But what the answer now fair nature gives ? 
We will not shame the philosophic art, — 
Induction serves us as the better part. 

In nature's forms two forces are combined : 

Force animate, inanimate, we find. 

But what is Hfe ? Is it effect or cause ? 

We look about its many-sided laws. 

Distinct from laws of things inanimate ; 

Behind them both may be one potentate. 

The primal life, from whence all other springs, — 

Cause of celestial and terrestrial things. 

Were monads once instinct with various life, 

And atoms, too, with force and motion rife ? 

Did they roll up themselves to massive globes, 

And deck themselves with nature's bright-hued robes ? 

Did they the laws of gravitation found, 



6 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Or they invent the laws of Hght and sound ? 

Matter is crude, and motionless, and dead. 

Desolate, void, a protoplastic bed. 

Till energized ; this energy from whence ? 

Does attribute or agent force dispense ? 

Has matter motionless the power to rise ? 

Or matter crude the power to organize ? 

Is chaos formless, empty, cold and dead ; 

To form and fulness, life and spirit wed ? 

Organic matter, organizing mind. 

Throughout the cosmos this the law we find, 

Whose paths are almost infinite yet one. 

From circling sateUites to central sun. 

One impulse seems to move them, great and small, 

One hand invisible to hold them all ; 

One master mind with more than finite skill. 

To wield the power A\dth singleness of will. 

Then what this master ? Where does he reside ? 

In matter does a soul of matter hide ? 

But matter various is, with various laws ; 

Has each an independent, factive cause ? 

Averse to fact such claim must prove to be, 

Or whence this universal harmony ? 

But mind and matter join themselves in man, 

Yet 't is upon the microcosmic plan. 

Man is a universe in miniature ; 

Then study man aright, the rest is sure. 

As in the scheme of things, so, too, of men. 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 

We first desire to know the where and when. 
And are men kindred to the so-called brute, 
Though quite unlike them both in form and suit ? 
But wider still the line is drawn between 
The man and brute, when higher pomts are seen ; 
For man can paint the brute from lip to limb, 
No brute as yet has ever pictured him. 

Resemblance does not prove a fellowship : 

Down to the ape, Hnk after link we skip, 

To baboons, many, monkeys, many more, 

To monads run we graded millions o'er ; 

Then what? From monads turn we back again. 

Assured that brutes have not begotten men. 

Nor monads brutes, nor monads formed themselves, 

Since life is wanting to these lower shelves. 

Plants, brutes, and men, produce by law their kind ; 

Laws are their masters howsoe'er inclined. 

So then beyond creation's capstone, man, 

A Master Mind devised the cosmic plan. 

The plants and brutes their mission well fulfill. 
They grow, mature : complete, death fills the bill. 
One question only will we ask : Pray, why 
Should they have lived at all, at last to die? 
We trace the answer to the cosmic man. 
For him they grew, he fills the relate plan. 

If some, before Adamic man appeared, 
Through ages long in solitude are reared, 



8 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

'T is yet for man, for man that is to be, 
The tiny twig grows up a m.ammoth tree ; 
The mimic mammal, mastodon becomes, 
And sloths turn out huge megatheriums, 
That from the archives of the distant past, 
Historic man might perfect truth at last. 

For man, all things above, below were made ; 
To him belongs the right to be obeyed. 
For him all lower beings have their day. 
The great and small respect his potent sway. 
For him the stars now shine, and planets roll, 
And gravitation wields her strong control. 
For him Time's even cycles ceaseless run. 
Till man's probative work on earth is done. 
Then what ? Are life and being now complete ? 
Does part with part in perfect oneness meet? 
Man dies ; so in its turn the senseless brute ; 
They both alike wear death's damp moldering suit. 

But how unlike they were on hfe's broad plain, 
Some common ground; in most, howe'er, were twain. 
Man towering high in intellectual might, 
With keenest sense of what is wrong and right, 
With fond ambitions rarely gratified, 
Hopes shoreward borne, thence ebbing with the tide, 
Conceptions vast of what is grand and true, 
Patterned in part ; is all by death now through ? 
How incomplete is mortal life to man, 
Though nature elsewhere shows a perfect plan ; 



THE GOLDEX LINK. 

Millions of links, the missing is not here, 
Man points us towards it in another sphere. 

Thus men to men as indicators stand 
Along the high-road to the promised land : 
Each high-born hope its starry finger sets, 
Bold skyward o'er its flashing coronets 
Of aspirations, longings, crystal bright 
As noon of day or as the noon of night. 

Thus here we find close formulated parts, 

But where are now the needed counterparts? 

Elsewhere the cosmos finds for every mate, 

A well designed, adapted correlate. 

The eye, in all, so nicely formed for sight. 

Would useless be without the quickening light ; 

The gift of speech in man, how grand ! 

But hearing added, shows how nicely planned. 

Imperious cravings parch the Hps of thirst, 

Till slaked by springs that from the mountain burst ; 

The sun that scorches plants, and beasts, and men 

Draws up the mist that sweetly falls again ; 

The starry globes that fill celestial space, 

Each to the other fills a relate place. 

There is, in fact, no isolated ground ; 
There are no useless fragments to be found, 
Though we the cosmic universe should span, 
Till found at last, if found at all, in man. 
By whatsoever hand it was evolved. 



lO THE GOLDEN LINK. 

By whatsoever power 't is now revolved, 
The cosmos fails in all to be complete, 
And fails, if so, when all convergents meet. 
It fails in man, its master work of art, 
And failing here, why falls it not apart ? 
Why did it for one single moment run ? 
Why was it, pray, thus ever once begun ? 
These questions face us with a tart reproof. 
To back conclusions with some stable proof, 
And find our failure in our lack of trust, 
In short deductions, not in cosmic dust. 

Again we turn to microcosmic man, — 
In him once more the universe to scan, — 
To find which way the indices are set, 
In hope to find the missing member yet, 
Since part and counterpart elsewhere abound, 
And relative, correlative is found. 

Approach, and we v^'ill look life's palace o'er : 
Affection meets us at the outer door, 
With queenly grace, as waitress of the manse 
The highest good of all her aims advance. 
Yet creature-love seems not her utmost length ; 
To love with all the soul, might, mind and strength, 
Demands a higher reach with naught between, 
A shadow-truth run down from worlds unseen, 
A proof cofiscquitur that such there are. 
Beyond the farthest ray of glittering star, — 
A realm in which some being holds to man 
A claim to love no other being can. 



THE GOLDEN LINK. I I 

Approach now, Duty^ shake her honest hand, 
Some distant relatives in waiting stand ; 
Few next of kin, a Princess of the blood, 
Her line and hneage reach beyond the flood. 
She claims to be the child of Higher Law, — 
Apprenticed young, her folk she rarely saw. 

But who is this ? Advancing, now draws near, 
A darkly shrouded form ; 't is pale-faced Fear ; 
Her real name, she says, is Holy Awe ; 
Her ancestors revered a holy Law ; 
But Time wrought changes in her family. 
Grafted wild stock in the ancestral tree ; 
And yet she prompts the human heart to fear. 
Fulfils her mission in her humble sphere ; 
Her three-fold chord the human race enfolds,- 
She cries, Look up ! her finger starward holds. 
But oft her heart grows faint, her finger falls, 
And points no higher than her mansion walls. 

Behold, mild Veneratio7i rises now, 
Sweet-faced, with majesty upon her brow; 
Advance and take in yours her offered hand, 
She, too, a Princess is in stranger land. 
Most royal blood does her warm heart suffuse, 
Albescent cheeks respond with rosy hues ; 
The asking will reveal her pedigree. 
If first assured thy heart has constancy ; 
In kind she will respond if kindly used, 
Her claim of lineage oft has been refused. 



I 2 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Men scorn and slight her for her virtuous ways, - 
She gets their curses oftener than their praise. 
The Greeks from sebomai her virtues name, 
And from aischtmomai^ sometimes for shame ; 
By Latins named, her origin is clear : 
From veiieror^ to worship and revere. 

Now ask who placed her in man's heart to sway 
Devotion's sceptre, teach him thus to pray, 
To reverence and adore on bended knee. 
To suppHcate, beseech, e'en prostrate be. 
From whence did such celestial virtue start? 
Subhmely grand is Veneration's part ; 
Her index is from zenith ne'er declined. 
We upward look her counterpart to find ; 
For in the cosmos naught may man adore, 
No live or lifeless thing may he implore ; 
Such v/orship would perversion worse pervert. 
And order to disorder fast convert. 

Since not to man, man bows the suppliant knee, 
Who^ then, must Veneration's author be ? 
Such Being must above the cosmos live. 
Who does to all their very being give ; 
And if for one we find the grand First Cause, 
We find for all the cosmos and its laws. 
Relations are the chains that bind in one 
Atoms and worlds, from satellite to Sun. 

So viewing thus man's innermost estate, 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 

One virtue more we will interrogate : 
'T is Conscience^ mistress of the family ; 
In all the land none better known than she : 
By many known and named as Moral Sense, 
With names, howe'er, we easily dispense. 
Let Conscience tell us plainly where she finds 
The right to legislate for human minds ; 
Her rightful sway no jurist will dispute, 
She lifts the savage high above the brute ; 
Arraigned within her court, the guilty soul 
Trembles with fear beneath her strong control. 
Could shm Pretension make herself so bold? 
Did Usurpation e'er such prowess hold? 
She wears no mask, she simulates no grace. 
She is no tyrant o'er the human race ; 
Her office is with magisterial mien. 
The right and wrong to nicely judge between, 
And send her judgments, free from every flaw. 
To every pleader in her courts of law, — 
To urge her claims, not on the score of might, 
But on the primal ground of what is right. 

But whence derive for right that primal ground ? 
Where can an ultimate appeal be found ? 
In proud, imperious majorities? 
In sneering, petulant minorities ? 
Can these vote in and then again vote out, 
What httle know or less they care about? 
Or, shall each man, indifferent to the light. 
Decide what is the wrong and what the right ; 



1 4 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Deciding by his art, or passing whim, 
Or by some notion made a pet with him ? 
Would reason, right and justice long abide. 
If thus, alas, their causes men decide ? 
Conscience demands as in her right, indeed, 
Some universal law of right to plead ; 
And hence an author who the right can claim, 
To bless obedience, disobedience blame. 

If for the Conscience no such law exists, 

If no supreme Intelligence subsists. 

What grave defects does nature here reveal, — 

Her running-gear contains a broken wheel. 

But no; the gear is good, and safe, and sound, 

Men's selfish aims have run it round and round 

To ends and uses not thereto germane ; 

The proper use to every one is plain : 

' r is written in the things of earth and air. 

Yet slowly spelled, 't is dimly lettered there. 

These central truths creation dees declare. 
We know from hence the asked-for who and where 
Of nature's God, who lives beyond its brink ; 
We find it there, the looked for golden Hnk. 
Above that traverse, where eternal day 
Gleams o'er creation's pillars, is God's way. 
Then, erst, did He beneath his watchful eye. 
Unroll the canvas of the deep blue sky. 
With azure borders stretched along the vast 
Eternities, the deep and hidden past. 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 1 5 

The lake that hes embosomed by the hills, 
Deep, placid, fed by springs and running rills. 
Reflects to him who stands upon its shore 
The clouds that hang the watery mirror o'er; 
And farther still, the bright, cerulean sky, 
That lakelet's bosom deep as heaven is high, 
The sun by day, the moon and stars by night, 
Each planet seen by its own proper light. 
So man is mirror-like : his soul reflects 
From deepest depths above the astral specks 
In hemispheres that o'er his pathway rise, 
Through rifts of clouds reveahng brighter skies. 

Elsewhere we roam creation o'er in vain, 

No satisfaction does our search obtain ; 

We ask it of each animated thing. 

We ask the birds that in the branches sing ; 

We Hst to catch it from the murmuring stream, 

From insect trills that pipe from wall and beam ; 

Then woo the zephyrs waltzing lightly by, — 

Interrogate the earth, the air, the sky. 

They answer thus : We know no other way 

Than He who made us always to obey ; 

We see what is, but not what is to be, 

We nothing know of human destiny : 

We hold in hand no wise divining rod, — 

We say that life and being are from God. 

But ask this satisfaction now of man ; 

Not from his Up — his life unfolds the plan. 



t6 the golden link. 

His inmost being is divinely keyed. 

And this creation else does not exceed; 

From hence the ceaseless hannonies prevail, 

The keyboard of the diatonic scale. 

The God of nature these the where reveal, 

But whafht is, does nature this conceal? 

To the arena of man's inner life, 

With instincts fraught with various wisdom rife. 

We turn again this problem new to solve, — 

This farther question we may here resolve : 

Call up the virtues for example fit, 

And bid them with us for a v/hile to sit. 

Ask now Affection if aHke her love 
Embraces good and bad, below, above ? 
She answers. No ; she chooses to her mind ; 
The primal good to which she is inclined 
Is virtue, beauty, usefulness combined ,; 
But earth-born ways have made her less refined. 
Yet though the jewel lie 'neath trampling feet, 
Deep in its bosom Ues that light so sweet. 
Which earth can neither give nor take away, — 
It earthward came from down the far away. 

He v/ho devised, therefore, the cosmic plan. 
Who placed therein the microcosmic man. 
Affection's author, and her object, too, 
Must be the God of love, to VN^hom is due 
The love and reverence of the human soul : 
"T is thus the parts complete the perfect whole. 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 1 7 

Bid Duty now attend, and promptly tell, 
If 't is the same, the doing ill or well. 
Ask Fear likewise ; does she discriminate ? 
The Higher Law is neither Church nor State. 
Like Veneration these, and Conscience, too. 
Their counterparts are holy, just and true, 
In Him who did all Hfe and being give. 
And like himself designed each one to live- 
But will this cosmic order stand for aye ? 
AVhat will there be if this shall pass away ? 
The supra-astral realms which stand to this, 
As stood to Rome the trans Alpine to ^zV, 
By reason and analogy would stand, 
As would the Alps if Rome were turned to sand. 
When Rome declined, the Gallic states became 
Another Rome ; the truth is still the same. 
Should all these teeming worlds at last dissolve. 
A spirit realm beyond might still revolve, 
And all ethereal grace that hither drew, 
Might thither turn again to live anew. 

But will it be ? Faith firmly answers, Yea : 
Will Nature tie the vote, responding. Nay ? 
Maybe whate'er begins will have an end, 
For or against we will not long contend. 
Glad, as at present matters stand, to find 
At least two realms conjoined as of one mind; 
When counterparts are there, the parts are here. 
And the reverse, which makes the perfect sphere. 



1 8 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

So, with deduction, and the perfect plan, 
We will resolve this problem if we can. 

What says the plant, the fish, the beast, the bird, 
Each, as a witness, must in this be heard. 
They live, they vegetate ; complete, they die ; 
Where'er they fall there must they ever li^. 
Though while in life producing each their kind, 
They thus by this continuance may find ; 
But hunted down by foes from shore to shore. 
The last one dies, the race exists no more. 
Poor sentence this for immortaUty: 
The power to hve and never more to die. 

The oceans of to-day were once the land; 
The hills and mountains, do they always stand? 
A star will now and then in darkness hide, — 
A new one take its place, and it subside. 
Monitions these that all may yet dissolve, 
Suns cease to shine, and planets to revolve. 
Man lives and dies, nor have we failed to see 
He does not cease, therefore, at once to be, 
Since incomplete on earth his Hfe has been, 
A Hfe of foes without and fears within. 
But when at last he finds the perfect day, 
And walks unswerved the bright celestial way. 
Will man himself, complete in every part, 
Perfect in body, brain, in health and heart — 
Will he, like morning mists and sparkling dew. 
Vanish away amid the heavenly blue ? 



THE GOLDEN LINK. . 1 9 

Does Nature tell us this ? Is this the way 
By which she votes immortal hopes away ? 

Oracles of Delphi, why so dumb ? 

Why so despairing, Skeptic, why so glum ? 

Ye pompous priests of nature, why are ye 

Fate-ridden in celestial augury ? 

Can man the chains of time and sense suspend. 

If here and there he finds relations end ? 

The cable chain, mark well, which holds the rest. 

Sweeps further on than east is from the west ; 

It joins to ours the world we cannot see, 

The link that joins them, lost in mystery: 

Howe'er, ten thousand pointers mark the spot. 

The eye of man or bird hath seen it not. 

On Earth's fair face the plants grow upward most, — 

The grasses, herbs, and trees, a mighty host ; 

As earth revolves, some stalk among them, fair. 

Each moment points its index finger there ; 

In every star there is a silver ray, 

Steady or twinkling, ever points that way. 

Because it is the nodal point between 

Two relate realms, the Seen and the Unseen. 

By every system with its central sun. 

Eclipses multiply, and circles run ; 

But at the nodes each orb salutes our own, 

Lip touches lip, and bone its fellow bone. 

'T is well, since Terra holds the cosmic key, 

That she, of all these worlds, should mistress be. 



20 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Constellate Pisces, glimmering faint and far, 

Upon her bosom wears a nodal star ; 

Harmonic sounds, as harp aeolian sweet, 

Vibrate from chords where nodal numbers meet'; 

Each tiny twig that in the thicket grows. 

Has nodal points whereat the leaflet blows ; 

The dial has its node and gnomon, too, 

To mark the sunny hours the day runs through. 

So matters knotty, intricate, abstruse, 

Have nodal points that serve a verbal use ; 

And battles, too, obstruction's master point, — 

A nodal arch is in each swollen joint. 

Thus nature calls attention where she knows 

The points strategic are and knots oppose. 

And is there, then, to man immortal life, 

In realms beyond this world of surge and strife ? 

Important matter 't is, vexed question this, 

Full of eternal loss or heavenly bHss ; 

But sharply points that way the love of it, 

Desire and object one another fit. 

So friendship, sweet, extends its gold-linked chain, 

It does not easy break by hardest strain : 

'T is deeply anchored in the heart of man. 

But where its linklets end, may tell who can. 

'T is not where cruel death our loved and lost 
Has withered with his keen, untimely frost. 
Friendship^erects the tomb, and marks the spot. 
And plants jt with the blue forget me-not ; 



THE GOLDEN LINK. 2 I 

That marble shaft, memorial of the dead, 

Points up from earth the mourner's drooping head; 

The hand cut in upon its pohshed face, 

The name engraved upon its solid base, 

The thought inlaid beside the sculptured rhyme, — 

All point us to Hope's fair immortal cHme. 

Time is too short for friendship unalloyed, — 

Eternity alone can fill this longing void. 

So love of beauty ; finds it full career 
Within the limits of this cosmic sphere ? 
Who ever heard it cry. Hold, 't is enough ! 
When sipping summer sweets from vale or bluff". 
Or feasting on some beauteous star of night. 
Along the sparkling streams of stellar light ? 
'T is only streams of beauty here we find ; 
Its shoreless sea alone can fill the mind. 

To Justice now approach with reverent tongue — 
For she was bowed with age when Time was young — 
And ask from whence she drew those honored laws 
With which she tries the suppHant's needy cause : 
And whence appeal whene'er she gets a wrench 
From judges on the very highest bench; 
And when as well as where will right prevail, 
And life flow on without a woe or wail. 
She, too, her starry finger lifts on high 
And bids us wait the long sweet by and by. 



2 2 THE GOLDEN LINK. 

Will Scie7ice now advance, a waiting guest, 
And answer truly to our high request ? 
Her name and fame bold praters love to flout, 
As though like theirs her head was turned about. 
Now will she scold, or will she smile at this, — 
Our faith in an eternal world of bHss ? 
She by the hand Religion takes so blest, — 
The first of all the sciences, and best, — 
The ground-work of whose every claim and call 
Is reverence for God, the All-in-all. 
Religion skipped, the key is thrown away 
That opes the door to realms of endless day. 

Come, then. Religion, to each wistful heart. 
That we may see and know thee as thou art : 
And come with Science, joining friendly hands, 
To teach us of the Seen and Unseen lands. 
Come, with your well-attested words of truth. 
And guide the steps of age and callow youth : 
And when at last our bodies turn to dust. 
Compose our spirits with a humble trust 
In Him who did all Hfe and being give. 
Who made us with himself and his to live. 



THE WEAVERS. 



THE WEAVERS. 

Soft music, such as seraphs sing, 
The rustle of an angel's wing, 
The gentle pressure of a hand, 
A hush that heralds a command, 
Awoke a dreamer on the Somnian Plains, 
Awoke his soul — his senses left in chains. 
'' Rise, Sleeper, rise ; forth follow into light ; 
'Tis vision's sweetest hour, 'tis noon of night ; 
The air is balmy, and the world is still ; 
I come to serve you, — ask me what you will." 
He waited not ; that heart had cherished long 
A wish above all other wishes strong, 
To see, as few may see, a human soul, — 
Not one alone, but all from pole to pole, 
Who people lands, or sail the lonely seas. 
Mid summer suns, or winter's chilHng breeze ; 
To see them with no mortal veil between. 
To see them as by God and angels seen. 
Now quick as a flash from th' electrical sky. 
That vision came into the spiritual eye. 
If sweet to the soul is the Hght of a star, 
The spiritual zone is brighter by far : 
For millions of men were seen at a glance. 
And the world was soon crossed in that spiritual 
trance : 



26 THE WEAVERS. 

Then, up to the regions of infinite light, 
The twain directed their measureless flight. 
And angels reviewed on the heavenly plains, 
And demons as well in their dungeons and chains ; 
Then dow^nward they sped ere the break of the 

dawn, — 
The dreamer awoke, and the angel was gone. 
Now what is the sum of this dream of a night ? 
What lesson of truth in this vision of light ? 
It is, that the dwellers in heaven and hell 
Have woven their webs — the ill and the well ; 
But the dwellers on earth are weaving on still, 
And all on a contract they 're bound to fulfill ; 
If they fail to comply, in measure or kind, 
Their guilt is their own, as they surely will find. 

The shuttles of life, how swiftly they fly ! — 

'Tis a throb of the pulse, 't is a wink of the eye ; 

'T is a flash of the mind, like a bolt from the cloud, 

A wish of the heart, then spoken aloud, — 

A motion of soul going out into act, — 

A vision of faith keeping eye on the fact. 

And the Will that ne'er tires, till it touches the tomb. 

Is the Agent that stands at the head of each loom. 

The bobbins are filled with various thread, — 

Some bright as the pink, some pale as the dead, 

Some soft as the silk, some coarse as a cord. 

The one for a lady, the one for a lord ; 

Some blue as the sky, some black as a cloud, 

Some thick as a quilt, some thin as a shroud. 



THE WEAVERS. 2"] 

Some strong as a wythe, some weak as a wave. 
The one for a soldier, the one for a slave : 
Some figured and fine, some plain as can be, 
Some smooth as the arch, some rough as the sea, 
Some costly as pearls, some cheap as a charm, 
The one for the forum, the one for the farm. 
The din of this life is the racket of looms ; 
You finish your piece, then off for the tombs. 
But the racket goes on, though you hear it not, — 
Your place in the graveyard the one quiet spot. 
The rest of mankind are whirring the wheels, 
And each one is close on the other one's heels ; 
From basement to attic, as busy as bees. 
Some standing erect, and some on their knees. 
Some oiling the gudgeons, some pulling at threads 
As low as their footstools, as high as their heads ; 
Some mending a boiler, some patching a flume. 
Some filling a lamp, some setting a loom, 
Some building up fires, some putting them out. 
Some wise as a Solon, some dull as a lout, 
Some singing, some scolding, some silent as death. 
Some losing their tempers, some losing their breath, 
Some pleased with their prospects, some soured at 

their lot. 
Some giving away nearly all they have got. 
And others are stingy as stingy can be. 
But all of them weavers from A unto Z. 

But what are the fabrics that come from the mill ? 
The same as the threads the shuttles to fill ; 



2 8 THE WEAVERS. 

The warp and the woof of the piece that you weave, 

Are the truths and the errors you fondly believe. 

The one is made up of the wool of the lamb, 

The other is nothing but shoddy and sham. 

But how can one tell them when once they are done ; 

The one from the other, or the other from one ? 

You look them all over as close as you can, 

'T is a blanket, we '11 say, for the comfort of man, 

'T is a rug or a carpet, so soft to the tread, 

A shawl for the shoulders, or hood for the head ; 

'T is lace for the windows, and lambrequins, too, — 

Pray tell us, who can, what one is to do ? 

Shall we go by the colors ? — You know what I 

mean — 
Take brightest, or dullest, or half way between ? 
If now I should follow the lust of my eye, 
I should pitch in for colors exceedingly high. 
'Tis better, you tell me, a moderate shade, 
Than to flash for a while, then fizzle and fade ; 
But the shoddy man knows that you think it is so. 
So he colors some high, and he colors some low. 
If now the five senses I put on the track, 
And go the ground over then follow it back, 
I find that some weavers have learned to deceive, 
No matter what patterns or fabrics they weave. 
So then I conclude that the very best way. 
Is to patronize houses that do as they say, 
And leave it to use to determine the rest. 
Whether this kind or that kind is poorest or best. 



THE WEAVERS. 29 

But what are the fabrics you 're weaving yourself? 
That is the question to take from the shelf, 
Lest when the Inspector comes round to view stock, 
Your sensitive nerves should meet with a shock ; 
For you are a weaver, and people must know 
What products you 're bringing to market to show. 
By their fruits shall ye know them, is the old Bible 

rule, — 
'Tis the same thing in general for man or for mule. 
And character is the one thing after all ; 
By that you will stand, by that you will fall. 
Then look at your shuttles ; with what ' are they 

filled ? 
Just look at your warp, see how it is twilled. 
Now roll back the work you already have wrought, 
The thoughts you have cherished, the doctrines 

you 've taught ; 
For the piece you are weaving is not for the shelf, 
If it serve for a garment, you must wear it yourself : 
If it be for a dwelling, be it thick, be it thin, 
It will furnish the house that you are to live in ; 
If it carpet a church, that church will it be 
Where you of a Sabbath are bending the knee ; 
If it cushion a playhouse, be it parquet or pit. 
Your work will confront you wherever you sit. 
Though others must share in the work that you do, 
'T is but little to them, yet a great deal to you; 
And weave you in laughter, or weave you in tears. 
Your work will follow you on through the years. 



30 THE WEAVERS. 

Of threads that are woven, now Truth is the best — 
'T is the finest and fairest from east to the west ; 
From the planets that roll, to the suns that stand 

still, 
Attired for the mission that each must fulfil ; 
From the carpeted fields, to curtains of sky, 
From the footstool of earth, to pavihons on high, 
From systems and centers to outermost wall, 
Truth e'er is the purest and brightest of all. 

Truth is the product of infinite mind, 
The beam of its threads, no finite can find. 
You sound in the depths of an infinite sea ; 
You may get to the door, but where is the key? 
You may reach to the heart of that hoHest place, — 
The glory of God you may look in the face ; 
You may ask, but in vain, — not a wink or a nod 
Gives a clue to the secret in the bosom of God. 

But think not from hence that truth is concealed ; 
To us and our children is what is revealed. 
Nor is it the thrums that alone we can see, — 
The lines are all perfect as perfect can be ; 
Through the reeds of our judgment, each separate 

thread, 
Runs down from the beam to the reel at the head. 
And the harness that holds them, by right of a throne : 
'T is the holy Commandments, — 't is God's law 

alone. 
But from the main-shaft, many beltings are run. 



THE WEAVERS. 3I 

Many planets revolve around one central sun ; 

So second truths stand to the primary one, 

And what is now doing, to what has been done. 

The eternally true shaped to limited law 

Gives visjuri divino without the least flaw. 

But the threads have been broken in many a place, 

And cotton and hemp are tied on to lace ; 

And lawyers, and judges, and jurymen, too, 

Are trimming the knots, and running them through, 

And parents and preachers, each one in his sphere, 

Are trying their luck the tangles to clear. 

In the science of numbers, in music's sweet scale, 

Men keep to the truth, and never once fail ; 

They must weave in the truth, or weave not at all. 

But in doctrine and duty men stumble and fall ; 

Hence the skeptics declare : Proud science is true ; 

With religion, we skeptics have nothing to do ! 

Each to the other is bitterest foe, — 

We hold to the one, the other let go. 

But truth is the warp of all that is good, — 

All is embraced in its one brotherhood. 

Religion is science, and highest of all, 

AVhatever opposes, must go to the wall. 

Its fabrics are honored in every land. 

By the base imitations in constant demand ; 

And the wrath of the skeptic who thrusts it aside. 

Is due to his blindness, or due to his pride. 

But why does reUgion go Hmping along. 

When science, proud maiden, skips on with a song ? 

For the very same reason, I suppose you must know, 



32 THE WEAVERS. 

That mine is a white, yours a black looking crow. 
Into family troubles, we wish not to pry, 
The least that is said, the sooner they '11 die ; 
But if the news columns so funny are fair, 
Both parties in question know how to pull hair ; 
But the troubles of each, best known to himself. 
May as well be dismissed to their place on the shelf. 

For faults in men's morals, most look to the church ; 
For faults in men's manners, some recommend 

birch ; 
For other shortcomings, 't is a little more time ; 
And so they weave on, the poor with the prime. 
But the mischief is wrought, 't is plain to be seen, 
In morals and manners, and all that 's between. 
By dropping God's truth and running in threads 
That men have evolved from their own kinky heads. 
The truth without error men give under oath ; 
In other connections, 't is a little of both. 
The doctors compound it in powders and pills, — 
'T is the fault, to be sure, of the rocks and the rills, 
For their mineral comes from the breast of the hills, 
And the man or the malady often it kills. 
The preachers, dear fellows, at the top of the pile. 
Will weave in an error just once in a while ; 
'T is a fault in their studies, or a fault in their style, — 
Some make of it guilt, let us think it is guile. 
To the lawyers now turn, at the foot of the score, 
And learn for our lesson that two and two more 
Make just what you please, but rarely make four. 



THE WEAVERS. 33 

But what if for warp, we weavers, forsooth, 

Have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

truth ? 
The same must we likewise now have for the woof, 
Or our piece with our pattern, will never stand proof. 
Poor houses are built upon excellent walls. 
Our Samuels anointest the meanest of Sauls, 
And preachers have failed on divinest of calls. 
We look dXprincipia by day and by night; 
First principles wrong, and nothing is right. 
Can faith then be right and practice be wrong? 
Can the cart faster go than the horse goes along ? 
Ah ! the horse and the carriage are often apart, 
Though harnessed together all right at the start ; 
So faith in the head and not in the heart. 
Of woof-threads, three are surpassingly fine : 
They goodness, and strength, and beauty combine. 
The weaver who weaves them, will weave all the rest. 
For, as part is to whole, so is better to best. 
'T is goodness that gives to the earthly its charm, — 
To all is it help, to none is it harm. 
'T is a thread that is spun in the sanctified heart. 
As the reel is filled up the hand takes a part ; 
For hand is to heart, and body to soul, 
As closely as joineth the cheek to the jole, — 
The bands of the one, the other control. 
As the threadings of light are skillfully run 
In tissues all bright o'er the face of the sun, 
The gossamer threads of goodness we trace 
In the fine lineaments of a sweet human face. 



34 THE WEAVERS. 

In the farm house so lowly, not far from the mill, 
In the stately old manse at the top of the hill, 
In the cottage so drear, where the winds wildly roar, 
In the fisherman's hut on the billow-washed shore, 
In the tenanted homes of th' industrious poor, 
In the hunter's rough lodge on the mountain or moor, 
Are the weavers that weave in the colors that stay. 
Though the colors are modest, as brown, or as gray. 
Here labor and love are both joined hand in hand, 
Which make the supply always equal demand. 
Nor is it the love of mere selfishness born, — 
Where selfishness lives there life is forlorn ; 
'T is the love of our own which to others outspreads. 
The rolls which are run into thousands of threads, 
Which belt the wide world in love's fond embrace, 
And lessen the limits of time and of space, — 
Where goodness repeats to the many and few: 
"Do to all as ye would that they do unto you.'' 

The husband and father who through the long hours, 
His labor pursues through the sunshine and show- 
ers, — 
Who cares for a farm, who is free as a slave ; 
Or the fisherman borne on the breast of a wave ; 
Or the hunter so free, whose guile is his game, — 
Who catches the wild by the sight of the tame ; 
The man in the mill and the man in the store, 
The worker in wood and the worker in ore. 
From the "jour" at the lathe to the boss of the 
floor, — 



THE WEAVERS. 35 

Are strangers to fame, but patrons of good, 
Who prove that it pays to weave as we should. 

But the mother that singeth her infant to sleep, 
Or stands by her sick ones to watch and to weep, 
Or toils for her household from dawn of the light, 
Till the days deeply sleep in the noon of the night, 
Is the weaver that v/inneth the prize of the day, — 
She weareth no crown, but is queen of the May. 

But these are green spots in a desert of sand, 
For troubles enough there are elsewhere at hand; 
Goodness is banished from many a door: 
The dancers, of course, refuse her the floor. 
At the card-table, too, she ne'er takes a chair, 
There are churches enough, and she likes to go there ; 
If the pews are refused her, she must stand up and 

stare. 
Or slyly slip out when the rest are at prayer. 
In the parlors of fashion, she 's rarely a guest, — 
The wine and the women are liked much the best. 
The houses of trade are quite friendly in part : 
Some bid her come in, some tell her to start. 
She frequently sits on the juryman's bench. 
And notes where the facts and the law get a wrench. 
Pretended reformers, when speaking her name, 
Put a " Gracious ! " behind it, " Good gracious ! " 

exclaim ; 
And 't is plain to be seen, by the questions they ask, 
For her they care little, but much for her mask. 



36 THE WEAVERS. 

What wonder the times are so dreadfully hard, 
When Satan comes round and sends in his card, 
And corruption is woven and sold by the yard ? 
Do you ask why the threads so often give way? 
The threads are too weak, we venture to say, 
And the weaver is vexed with the frequent delay. 
But where shall we find the threads that will stand ? 
The breaking of threads is the cry of the land. 
The children of six, and of eight, and of ten, 
Are treated as though they were women and men ; 
No wonder then that when they get to be twenty, 
Successes are few and the failures are plenty. 
Ah ! the wish, most of all, of weavers is, speed. 
But true strength of fiber is what they most need. 
The clerks in the banks and the clerks in the stores, 
The keepers of trust and the keepers of doors. 
And the presidents, too, both the great and the small. 
Some are most worthy, and some not at all. 
Nothing new about this, I fancy you '11 say. 
The world has been wagging this very same way, 
Ever since Mother Eve cut the caper she did. 
And took to the palm-trees of Eden and hid. 
But this you in candor will surely admit, — 
The admission is worthy a Pope or a Pitt, — 
That the tension of threads in the looms of our times. 
And especially here in American climes. 
Is greater by far than it e'er used to be. 
Say, when the Mayflower, came over the sea ; 
By consequence then, as the logicians say, 
To keep the taut webs from e'er giving away. 



THE WEAVERS. 2)7 

We must lessen the tension, or strengthen the 

threads ; — 
In other words, strengthen men's hearts and their 

heads, 
Or take from the times all the terrible strain 
That is tugging at nerves and taxing the brain. 
The first, we can do, but the last we cannot, — 
At least with the power at present we 've got. 
Can we melt down the mountains in a fining-pot? 
As tension we cannot, we must lessen speed; 
Reform we must have, — it is the great need, — 
And safety secure in the church and the state. 
Before reformations are ever too late. 
We are living indeed in a practical age. 
What to do, how to do it, is now all the rage. 
Utility stands in the troupe, as the star. 
Esthetics are found to be way below par. 
But goodness and strength when alone are quite 

plain, — 
The cloth sure is stout, but it shows up the grain. 
Is it not just as well then to put on the finish? 
Be beauty your strength it will never diminish ; 
And beauty and goodness are very good friends, 
What either one lacks the other one lends ; 
If either one breaks, the other one mends. 
Nature has taught us what beauty is worth : 
Beauty is spread o'er the face of the earth ; 
Her Hues are not straight like the rays of the spheres, 
But curved like the orbits which measure their years. 
Her birds in their plumage with beauty are clad. 



38 THE WEAVERS. 

And the beasts of her forest — the good and the bad — 

Give ermine to judges, and robes to the kings 

Whose gold and whose jewels and many such things 

Are taken from nature's elaborate store, 

Whose beauties revealeth the God we adore. 

As the concave of stars in a calm summer's night, 

In the lake is reflected by soft stellar light, 

So the beauty of nature by correlate plan 

Is mirrored deep down in the soul-Hfe of man. 

As that light is but dim where the sea-mosses grow, — 

Many thousands of feet is the surface below, — 

And the fishes that swarm in those caverns of night, 

Are but poorly supplied with the organs of sight, 

So man without culture in thought and in act. 

Is a stranger to beauty in faith and in fact. 

There are deeps upon deeps in the volume that rolls 

From equator to tropics, from tropics to poles ; 

But amphibious tribes to the surface must rise. 

And man, a scale higher, may mount to the skies. 

How sweet is the light of the sun in the sky. 

But sweeter the light of the spiritual eye ; 

As the one, so the other reveals to the mind, 

The beauties to which we are strongest inclined. 

The patterns which art universal transfers. 

Are copied from nature — are every one hers. 

The beauties of art we always admire, 

But the stream than the fountain can never run 

higher. 
The vicious will not and the blind can not see 
The presence of beauty o'er land and o'er sea ; 



THE WEAVERS. 39 

And lost to such, hence, are her lessons of love, 
But man clothed in beauty is born from above. 



The weavings of truth first wrought out from design 
Were patterns of beauty, all faultless and fine ; 
Just fashioned and meet for the mansion above, 
Where God and his angels are dwelHng in love. 
And there in that home these patterns are yet, 
The few who have seen them will never forget ; 
The rest of mankind — ah! how bitter their cup! — 
Must wait till the bell rings the death curtain up. 

When Moses went up on the mountain of fire, 
And the billows of flame rolled up higher and 

higher, 
To him, of all others, the honor was given. 
Of looking all over these patterns in heaven. 
That he might construct from what he there saw, 
A tent where the people might worship by law ; 
For all who would worship in age or in youth 
Must worsh'p God always in spirit and truth. 
The prophet of Patmos once entered the vale, — 
For all that he saw, pen and pencil would fail ; 
But samples are given of things that are there. 
In that City of God, as fadeless as fair, 
And the glories unnumbered that hallowed the place 
Oft caused the old prophet to fall on his face, 
And that vision the last that was writ in a book. 
And the book was left open that others might 

look. 



40 



THE WEAVERS. 



Thanks be to the Giver of all that is good, 
We weavers of earth may weave as we should; 
The patterns are given by which we should weave, — 
We know what we should, what we should not, be- 

Ueve. 
The warp, too, is furnished all ready at hand. 
And the woof we can have on the shortest demand. 
If now we weave illy, the fault is our own, — 
The blame, we must bear it, and bear it alone. 



SONGS OF THE SEA 



THE SURGING SEA. 

I SEEM to hear the surging of the sea, — 

The hollow roar of waves that strike the shore, — 
And yet the billowy deeps are far from me, 

The angry floods that o'er the dark reefs pour. 
How now ? These echoes whence ? I hear them oft 

They hold me spellbound in their magic chains, — 
Now near, now far away, now loud, now soft. 

As fancy, like a wild horse, takes the reins, 
And bears me on through mythologic bounds. 

And classic lands, and oceans, gulfs and bays. 
And storm-swept coasts, and treacherous seas, and 
sounds. 

With sea-born horrors of Time's latest days. 

I hear Charybdis howl, the winds a-glee, 

The hght foam tossing wildly, high in air ; 
Ships sinking to the bottom of the sea. 

Though manned by sailors brave to do and dare ; 
And horrid Scylla sets the sea aroar. 

Along the swift, tide-borne Messinian strait ; 
Close on the serrated Italian shore 

This marine monster sits in savage state ; 
They, and they only, pass who must this way 

Amid the angry currents all awhirl ; 



44 SONGS OF THE SEA. 

Woe widi the night — 't is quite enough by day, — 
With helm firm lashed, and mainsails all afurl. 

With madly screeching winds and crested waves, 
To tussle in the doubtful chance forlorn. 

To sink, may be, to nameless watery graves. 
Or live to hail the kind return of morn. 

I list again, and hear the billows break 

With thundering roar on rocky Athos' beach, 
The winds and waves forever glad to take 

The craft within their fell destroying reach ; 
Mere playthings such as bursting bubbles these, 

For to this Thracian Jutland never came 
A day of rest, of calm, a gentle breeze ; 

Tempestuous coast, thy days are much the same. 
Three hundred ships, Mardonius' Persian fleet, 

With twenty thousand skillful seamen manned, 
Vainly assayed around this cape to beat. 

To take fair Hellas' freedom-loving land ; 
So, too, upon Eubcea, rock-ribbed isle. 

And where the PeHan mountains rise. 
The ^gean winds the Persian wreckage pile, 

And hft their paeans to the vaulted skies. 

Hear I the wailings of the stormy seas 
That hold the Cyclades so close in hand ; 

Sporades, too, they draw the stiffening breeze, 
Surge follows surge upon the beaten strand ; 

They solemn echoes down the ages send. 
For ceaseless is the waters' ebb and flow, — 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 45 

They never tire, their surgings have no end : 
No peace do these Thallassian waters know. 

By distant Colchis, on the Eastern shore, 

I hear the wind-gusts of the Euxine moan, 
And round the Chersonese the billows roar. 

And Scythian breakers join the undertone ; 
So, too, the tempests round Sinope sigh, 

Ceranus feels the shock of battling waves, 
And men who venture here must dare to die, 

And lie uncoffined in their watery graves. 

What hear I now, so wild, so thunder-clad. 

Terrific, so tempestuous ? Must be 
The monsters of the middle mere are mad. 

Ah, me ! the cause of this is plain to see : 
Euroclydon is sweeping o'er the main 

And driving all before ; no anchors hold ; 
The newest ships can scarcely bear the strain ; — 

Woe to the craft whose ribs are growing old. 
Hear ye those piteous cries ? What wonder now ? 

The bravest hearts will sometimes bend and break ; 
Before the tempest each in prayer will bow. 

For who can tell what morn for him will wake ? 

I hear the waves on Adria's rugged deep 
Break on Italia's clear and classic shore ; 

The ships of war and trade adown it sweep, 
Some to return and some return no more. 

Tyrrhenian seas, with tempests madly torn. 
Send out their wailing echoes on the breeze ; 



46 SONGS OF THE SEA, 

Along the rich Balearic isles they mourn 
And whistle through the straits of Hercules. 

So, too, on Scandinavia's billowy coast, 

I hear the waves unceasing rage and roar ; 
Hie stormy Baltic loudly makes her boast 

Of waves that rise and reach from shore to shore. 
I hear the mighty maelstroms as they draw 

I he Gulf Stream through the ocean's swelhng tide 
And swallow in their all-devouring maw 

The ships that through their narrowing circles 
glide. 

But stormy \\'inds are not all ocean-bom, 

Nor oceans always on destruction bent : 
The Nereids sometimes blow a mellow horn, — 

On peaceful errands oftentimes are sent. 
I hear, betimes, alone in hfe's sweet calm. 

At vesper hours, in evening's ruddy glow, 
The waves a-hush, to weariness a balm, 

And ripples murmur gently as they go. 
The winter seas seem bleak and passion-rent. 

Till summer warms the rigors in their blood. 
And yet the sea gods when on mischief bent, 

Will plow with hurricanes the gentlest flood. 
The broad Pacific, rightly named, is mild ; 

Its heart is peaceful, and its face serene. 
No glist'ring icebergs here are mountain piled. 

No Gulf Stream runs its sunny shores between. 



SOA^GS OF THE SEA. 47 

Mid India's isles the spicy breezes blow, 

Bearing the balm upon each silken wing, 
Lulled by the noontide's fervid solar glow, 

Or waked by evening's cool to louder sing ; 
As in the garden of Hesperides, 

Where golden apples in abundance grow, 
Amid the glintings of the loaded trees 

The scented zephyrs softly come and go. 

Thus through the trumpet of my inner ear, 

Glide in weird echoes from some wave-washed shore. 
Well toned, with cadence true, distinct and clear. 

They come ; if welcomed, come they all the 
more. 
Welcome they are : the waves of ocean sang 

Sweet lullabies my infant ears to charm ; 
The sterner voices of the waters rang. 

But woke within no feeUngs of alarm. 
Or crib or cradle, swung by patient hand. 

Moved with the gentle rocking of the sea. 
My childish feet oft walked its pebbly strand, — 

Its every mood was learned and loved by me : 
Its angry plash, its gently pulsing throbs, 

Its banks of fog, its winds from off the lea. 
The inshore breeze, its softly soughing sobs. 

Its sullen moans, its waves there all a glee. 
Bound by these spells, what wonder that the child. 

Child of the sea, by its blue waters born. 
Should long to sail upon the oceans wild, 

And all their potent dangers laugh to scorn ! 



48 SONGS OF THE SEA. 

Land-locked awhile, the strong desire returns, — 
A fever in his blood that will not die ; 

The longing lives, its every ember bums, 

Nor are they quenched how hard soe'er we try. 

Our lives stand pictured in the surging sea, — 

Its calms and storms, with potent forces armed ; 
A mirror this in which ourselves we see. 

Not good or bad, but passion-stirred, or calmed. 
I hear the sad submissive wavelets creep 

Amid the granite rocks that jut the sea: 
But let these wavelets catch from out the deep 

Some whisper that a storm is soon to be, 
How quick those wavelets into billows swell. 

The gentle murmurs to a tempest grow ! 
But how 't will end, what prophet wise can tell? 

And yet these moods are like our lives, we know; 
Our rqinds are mobile as the briny deep : 

One harmless seems, both meek and mild to-day, - 
A Samson in Delilah's lap asleep, — 

But waked, will bear the Gazan gates away. 
Not all unlike us is the cruel deep, 

Remorseless as the fell devouring grave, — 
When we are deaf to such as mourn and weep. 

Swept out to sea on sorrow's death-cold wave. 
The wicked, like the restless, surging deep, 

In waves of trouble find no ark of peace ; 
How mild so e'er, the sea can never sleep. 

Nor from its agitation ever cease. 



SOJVGS OF THE SEA. 

Emblems of power in God alone, not man, 

Are oceans broad and deep, on motion bent ; 
Creation shows an all-embracing plan. 

Its parts and counterparts are fully meant. 
The waves thus serve to teach us lessons deep, 

For when we, helpless, feel their angry thrall. 
Abaft, the Man of Sorrows lies asleep, 

That we may wake him with our earnest call. 
Roll on, roll on, thou mighty ocean, roll. 

Or here or there where'er thy promptings tend : 
With inborn freedom sweep from pole to pole. 

From shore to shore thy brawny arms extend. 



49 



50 SONGS OF THE SEA. 



THE SEA OF TIME. 

Across the mystic sea of centuries, 
Succeeding ages sail their argosies, 
To find that unknown land, that shore. 
Discovered once, is held forever more, — 
Where Hving waters life eternal give ; 
Nor is it there the all of Hfe to live. 
What now exceptions are, strange rarities. 
Are there the rule, divinest charities. 

How long the voyage, how strange, O mystic sea. 
How slow the seasons as we drift a-lee; 
No shores we find, but island-shores a few, 
From thence we launch and course by compass true 
Becalmed at times, sometimes by tempests tried. 
Hoping to win, we sail 'gainst wind and tide. 
Mid fleets and flags with aHen colors smeared, — 
At will, through every point of compass steered ; 
Discouraged oft, scarce knowing what to do, 
We lay our course and plough the waters through. 

But see! just look across our windward bow, 
Sea-weeds are tiding down upon us now ; 
Aye, sea-pale flowers from shallow depths arise. 
And land-locked clouds are floating in the skies. 
Cast out the lead — ten thousand feet of line, — 



I 



SOATGS OF THE SEA. 5 I 

Delusive flowers, ye bear no prophet's sign : 

False floating clouds, some island of the deep 

Has drawn you down, and lulled your powers to sleep. 

Sea worn and weary, shall we rest awhile. 
And rot at last upon some lonely isle ; 
Or be like those who sailed and sank at last, 
A sailor's luck through all the ages past ? 

Six thousand years have well-nigh winged their way 
Since dashed the first ship through the briny spray. 
With other craft, nine hundred years or more, 
And sank at last far out from either shore. 

Ye luckless wanderers on life's mystic sea, 
How brave ye are, how true to destiny ! 
The sorrows of your way, how soon forgot ! — 
For disappointment is the common lot. 

Not thus the voyage the ocean isles between, 
When faith and hope have grasped the dim unseen 
And sailed the barren waste of waters through, 
When skies were dark, and skies were bright and blue ; 
Their guide the compass, or some friendly star. 
No phantom isle, the isle they seek afar. 
For reason tells them there must be a land 
To make a Gulf Stream — some far distant strand. 
Hope seeks it to the borders of despair, 
And finds it, rich and beautiful and rare. 



52 SONGS OF THE SEA. 

Sweet promise this the longer voyage to run, 

To every system there must be a sun ; 

And faith to reason joins her royal seat, 

And seen and unseen thus together meet ; 

Across the gulf of years their hands unite, 

Till hope bears fruit, and faith is changed to sight, 

Or signs of promise fill portentous skies. 

And hope deferred lifts up her tearful eyes. 

Then tell us, wanderers on Hfe's mystic sea. 
From what there was and is, what is to be? 
The log-book tells us of the miles we run, 
When once the race of life is well begun ; 
But tell us, comrades, rouse ye from your sleep. 
How far beyond us runs this mystic deep ? 
Give us, ye sea nymphs, from your hidden store, 
Some record of that undiscovered shore ; 
Or ambient spirits of the ether skies, 
What see you, shore-like, with far-darting eyes ? 
Or thou, good spirit from the throne of God, 
Give us some sign with thy divining rod. 

Is there no answer to our urgent call? 
Has then this sea no distant boundary wall, — 
No shore but that from which old time began. 
No relate shore that makes the whole a plan ? 

We do not doubt, we would not if we could ; 
Faith joined to fact still makes the promise good^; 



I 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 53 

Hope long deferred makes sick the weary heart, 
Till taught of God, we choose the better part. 

So sailed Columbus — name supremely blest ! — 
To find a new world in the distant west ; 
Hope held the helm till perils all were past, 
Foul mut'ny fled, and victory came at last. 

Remember well, we sailors learn to say, 
'Tis always darkest just before the day ; 
Judged by this sign, the night will soon be o'er. 
And opening day reveal the longed-for shore. 

How long the night with drunken revels curst, — 
Virtue retires, vice everywhere is first ; 
The skeptic thrives, religion wears a mask. 
And honest caUings have become a task. 
Deceitful sea, how like the human heart 
That feels so oft the traitors poisonous dart ! 
No terra firma is the heaving main, 
No prairie-land old ocean's watery plain : 
A restless deep, whose cruel maw takes in 
The milHon millions from this world of sin : 
And millions more, now life and death between, 
Will never pass the last great quarantine. 

Up to the main-top send a sharp lookout : 
Men in the crow's-nest, what are they about ? 
A weird light glows in the vaulted sky ; 
Long-looked-for sights reward the watchful eye. 



54 



SOA'GS OF THE SEA. 



Tell US, is daylight surely near at hand? 

And see you signs of no far-distant land ? 

Ah ! sure, the lookouts are adown below, — 

Most of the watchmen are asleep, we know ; 

What care they for a prophet's regal sign ? 

They love far more their pelf, and pipes, and wine ; 

The shams and shows of Fashion's cruel reign, 

Demand the labor of their heart and brain. 

Like priest like people, is an adage old, — 

The heap is chaff, the scattering grains are gold. 

Ye gallant ships with all your canvas spread, 
Look out for breakers rohing just ahead. 
Behold the sky! the clouds are all awhirl. 
Take in the topsails, main and mizzen furl ; 
The weather signals stormy times forecast, — 
Weather this storm, it is the very last. 

But who will heed the prophet's warning cry ? 

Full many a ship has sunk, a harbor nigh. 

And many a soul on Time's tempestuous sea, 

Will miss the goal, a blest eternity. 

Though rocks and reefs are noted on the chart, 

The sins and folHes of the human heart. 

Deceitful customs of an evil day, 

The shoals and quicksands in our shoreward way. 

No shore-Hghts yet from distant harbors gleam ; 
Prophetic light, shed down thy heavenly beam. 
The night is long, and faint the ship's light now, 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 55 

And many a light expires on beam and bow. 
The tempest rises as the mercury falls, 
And sober captains sound the trumpet calls : 
"All hands on deck! " Yes, pull the Jonahs out ; 
'Tis time to know what every man's about. 
We near the coast, if signs are any worth, — 
Signs in the heavens, and signs as well on earth. 
A sharp lookout men at the bow must keep ; 
Expectant hour, this is no time to sleep. 
No sleepy crew a gallant ship can save, — 
Prepare, ye sleepers, for a watery grave ! 
Ho ! heavenly coast -lights, how ye rise to view ; 
Cry, Land ahoy ! from every gallant crew. 



56 SONGS OF THE SEA. 



OUR ATLANTIC SEABOARD. 

Anniversa?y of the Battle of Stonington, Conn.., August 10, 
1894. 

We hear the crested billows roar ; 
But years agone, three hundred score, 
The waves first curled upon this shore, — 
When continents began to grow. 
And glaciers born of ice and snow. 
The bays and oceans then were young, 
And thermal lines but lately strung. 
These facts their deeper lessons teach, 
And tell us that this ocean beach 
A history has of wondrous reach. 

II. 
An eastern lands-end here was found. 
For those who built the memory mound, 
Here first to tread historic ground ; 
Then later still the Norsemen bold. 
Came to these shores from Iceland's cold ; 
And later still the Indian came, 
Whose savage heart 't is hard to tame ; 
And when Discovery launched her ships, 
And printing took the place of lips, 



SONGS OF 7\1E SEA. 57 

The English flag the Cabots flew, 
And linked the Old World to the New, 
Then here colonial greatness grew. 

III. 
The claims of Spaniards, French and Dutch, 
Some Scandinavian folk and such, 
Did not amount to very much 
Against the prior English right, 
The Fri?na Visfa, the First Sight. 
Before Columbus touched this coast, 
It is our claim and right and boast, 
That Cabot did his good ship steer 
From Halifax to bold Cape Fear, — 
Land sacred to the English tongue. 
To laws that from Old England sprung, 
Whose worth in every land is sung. 

IV. 

Our infant state in swaddling bands, 
Was rocked beside these ocean sands, — 
The cradle-song the moaning strands, — 
Till, older grown, it left the sea. 
And westward stretched by slow degree. 
From Lakes to Gulf our country spread. 
The freemen's pride, the tyrant's dread. 
But in each rood of freedom's ground. 
The ear-marks of the East are found. 
In home and school and church and state, 
The early patterns stamp the late, 
But all in or.e, an empire great. 



58 so JVC S OF THE SEA. 

V. 

Along th' Atlantic seaboard grew, 

The mother cities not a few, 

To whom our thanks are justly due. 

They were our bulwarks, grand and strong. 

Against invasion, mischief, ^^^:ong, — 

Centres of learning, life and trade. 

Growing apace by each decade. 

As stands the light-house by the sea, 

These were the Hghts of Hberty, 

Nor yet are deaf to duty's calls : 

Grand cities these, whose antique halls, 

Have mostly turned to modem walls. 

VI. 

In Vedas of our Saxon race, 
New England holds an honored place, 
And holds it with a matchless grace. 
Her shores are bleak and tempest-torn, 
Her gray rocks bold and winter-worn ; 
Her rugged hills a cheerless sight. 
Save as they serve a beacon light 
To ships that pass by night or day, 
Along this keel-ploughed watery way. 
Yet here the Mayflower hugged the shore, 
Never by pilgrims trod before, — 
The home of freemen evermore. 

VII. 

New England is not over-wide, — 
Her line is longest on the tide. 



SOiVGS OF THE SEA. 

Here six small states grew side by side ; 
But what is lacking in her roods, 
She makes up in potential moods. 
Prairies are not her special boast, — 
She glories in her sea-girt coast ; 
She is not mighty in her span, 
She's strongest in the rights of man. 
So, long or short, or lean or wide, 
It does not weal or woe betide : 
Worth is her motto, truth her guide. 

VIII. 

The Pilgrims in North England born. 
Oft heard the Scotsmen blow the horn, — 
Like them could charge on hope forlorn. 
So when by bleak and wintry winds. 
They failed to reach the Dutchland pines. 
Driven upon this sterile coast, — 
Of fortune bound to make the most, — 
They bound themselves by compact good, 
And left for aye the restless flood. 
And felled the trees, and tilled the soil. 
With scant of corn, and none of oil, 
And won their way by sweat and toil. 

IX. 

Migrations spread them to the West, 
By mount and vale they found their rest. 
With freedom felt supremely blest. 
Compactly joined they reached from Maine 
Across the hills to Lake Champlain, 



59 



6o sojvgs of the sea. 

And southward to Long Island Sound, 
And thence the sea-coast was their bound. 
In statecraft they in stature grew, 
In wealth of lands and commerce, too ; 
In brain and brawn, and self-respect; 
The last o'erdone, we half suspect, — 
Rigor of law their chief defect. 

X. 

But EngHsh kings were much abhorred, — 
The gap was wide 'twixt serf and lord, — 
The CavaUers and Roundheads warred. 
The Commonwealth displaced the crown. 
The Restoration put it down. 
From kings and queens the crown divine 
Passed to the Hanoverian line ; 
The Georges came to place and power, 
The First and Second had their hour; 
But George the Third would master be 
In home land and in colony. 
And thus made war on hberty. 

XI. 

So England ruled by Tory lords. 
Oppression swept the tender chords 
That bound her to her distant wards ; 
And war to Independence led, — 
America came out ahead, — 
And Boston was the mother city, 
(The British left her, what a pity!) 
And Lexington won deathless fame, 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 6 1 

And cities more than we can name. 
In weal or woe, in war or peace, 
To serve. New England did not cease, 
Nor will she till the great release. 

XII. 

In eighteen-twelve was war renewed, 

John Bull was to his notions glued, 

None might appeal from his conclude. 

So foe met foe by land and sea. 

And on they fought for victory. 

The British scarce a battle won, — 

In vain they fired on Stonington. 

Our best devoirs we gladly pay 

To this to us remembered day. 

When shot and shell were hurled this way. 

XIII. 

Those warships fill our mental eye. 

'T was then, alack, 'T is fight or die ! 

On every hand death's missiles fly. 

War ceased, the last with England fought, — 

Peace came, but not too dearly bought. 

We 're glad to-day for this dear borough, 

That it fell not in war's deep furrow. 

Still stands it by this ocean coast. 

The people's pride, the patriot's boast. 

There can be found no worthier one, 

By battle scarred but not undone, 

Than is our own fair Stoninsjton. 



62 SOA^GS OF THE SEA. 



THE RESTLESS SEA, 

I. 
O RESTLESS, rolling, pulsing sea, 
Calm and composed thou canst not be. 
Deep currents surge thy inmost soul, 
Tides draw thee with their strong control ; 
Storms sweep across thy troubled breast. 
E'en gentle v.inds disturb thy rest ; 
Resisting mountains bank thy pave. 
And gorges twist th' enfathomed wave ; 
Whilst shoaling shores their challenge hum 
Thus far, no farther may'st thou come. 

II. 

O restless, rolHng, wind-whipped sea. 
To fret and foam, thy destiny. 
Yet thou art not an aimless flood. 
Deepest designs are in thy blood: 
Thy Gulf Streams run from shore to shore 
And thaw the icebergs to the core : 
The warm waves feel the coohng tide, 
Dispensing comfort far and wide 
So, wert thou still, O roUing sea, 
The world were filled with misery. 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 63 

III. 

O restless, rolling, bright blue sea, 
Wondrous art thou in majesty! 
How glad the summers on thy shore, 
Where wavelets sparkle, billows roar ! 
The sea-birds on thy bosom ride. 
The swift keels cut thy swelling tide : 
The light-house flames across the main 
And beauty clothes the watery plain. 
O God, the sea, how great, how grand ! 
And yet thou hold'st it in thy hand. 



64 SONGS OF THE SEA. 



THE SAME BLUE SEA. 

To 

Fair lady, thou art wed, wed to the sea ; 

Nor can one doubt thy hearty constancy. 

For when mid-summer heats begin to glow, 

Oif to the shore deHghted thou dost go. 

The mountain airs so pure, so cool, so sweet. 

Thy gentle presence now in vain entreat ; 

The mountain streams in vain their amours tell, 

'T is not with these that thou would'st sweetly dwell. 

Rivers and lakes, all inland waters, vain, 

Cool shades and pebbly shores, — why yet complain? 

The lady fair you love so well to see, 

Thy guest these summer days is not to be. 

Your charms, ye Adirondacks, are passed by. 

In vain Niagara's thundering waters cry ; 

All grottoes weird, all darkening gorges wild, 

Hills on hills, and mounts on mountains piled ; 

Bewitching nooks, befitting home for saints. 

How dull the ears ye fill with your complaints ! 

Fair Bethlehem, that crowns New Hampshire's hills. 

In vain, bright gem, her offered goblet fills ; 

And Intervale, Religion's holy cot. 

Thy matchless charms must also be forgot : 

Ye lift in vain your vigorous hymns of praise. 

Ye cannot match the sea's inspiring lays. 



SO.VGS OF THE SEA. 65 

Then give me a cot by the same blue sea, 

A home by the crystal deep, 
With all its lovely witchery. 

And there will I wake and sleep. 

I, too, will walk the pebbly shore. 

Entranced by the wavelet's curl ; 
Will watch the billows thundering roar. 

And the wild-wave's maddening whirl. 

Out on the shoals we '11 safely stroll, 

And plunge in the briny sea, — 
Ride on the billows as they roll. 

Till we reach again the lea. 

We shall be counselled as we walk. 

By the sea gulls white and fair, — 
Shall list the angel's silvery talk, 

Breathed through th' envapored air. 

Then give me a cot by the same blue sea, 

A home by the crystal deep. 
With all its lovely witchery, 

And there will I wake and sleep. 



66 SONGS OF THE SEA. 



THE WATCHMAN ASLEEP. 

"And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow." 

Mark iv., 38. 

How calmly he lies in the stern of the storm-craft, 

How madly the billows are leaping ; 
How they roll o'er the bow to the sleeper abaft, 

But disturb not the watch he is keeping. 
By the swellings of Jordan sleepeth the lion, — 

Awake, though of slumber partaking ! 
Fast closed are the eyes of the Watchman of Zion, 

Yet his heart is full of awaking. 

Wonder not that he sleeps ; from the dawn of the 
mornings 

The crowds have begirt and beset him ; 
A few to take up with his wooings and warnings. 

The rest to forsake and forget him. 
'T is the close of a day of manifold teaching, 

And scores have found gladness for grieving ; 
The darkness has ended the healing and preaching, 

And sleep is the need of the evening, 

'T were death to a soldier to sleep when on picket, 

No matter how weary from working ; 
A foe might be skulking near by in the thicket, 

Or close on the picket-line lurking. 



so JVC S OF THE SEA. 67 

A woe is pronounced on the watchman that sleepeth ; 

For the watchmen of earth let it be. 
The Watchman of Zion his watch duly keepeth, 

Though asleep in the paths of the sea. 

'T is our fear, not our faith, that prompts us to wake 
him ; 

So long as he sleeps on the deck-planks. 
Not a wave that breaks over the ship can molest him. 

No danger from reefs or from sand-banks. 
The ship might go down to the pave of the ocean, 

Adown to the home of sea-otters. 
This watery Egypt would furnish a Goshen 

All safe in the heart of the waters. 

Should we now in our fear venture on to awake him, 

To say to him, Master, we perish! 
He the winds and the waves would compose all about 
him, 

And reprove us, and love us, and cherish. 
In the storm or the calm sleep to him is but waking. 

And the faithful who trust him are blest ; 
Knows he well when the ship rides the wave or is 
breaking, — 

Then leave him, ye faithless, to rest. 

But see that your eyelids no slumber enchaineth, 
Brave face ye the storm's angry breath ; 

The care of the ship to stern duty constraineth. 
Then sleep ye not, lest unto death ; 



68 SOiVGS OF THE SEA. 

Close by you to try you the Pilot fast sleepeth, 

That if ever he seem far away, 
His word you may know he most faithfully keepeth, 

For he says, I am with you for aye. 

To trust when in danger, to serve when on duty, 

Your Pilot expects this, not more ; 
In toiling and rowing is there moral beauty. 

When duty sets us to the oar. 
The winds may be wild on the high rolling billow, 

Care not what the tempest may be ; 
Astern Hes your Pilot asleep on his pillow, , 

Undisturbed by the wrath of the sea. 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 69 



THE FISHERMEN OF WATERFORD. 

I. 
New London Neck, Long Island Sound, 

The river Thames and Jordan Cove 
Are names of places, joined and bound 

By stream and Jutland, reef and grove. 
Here lived a race of hardy men, 

Who sailed the seas, and tilled the sward, - 
Best named and known as fishermen, 

The fishermen of Waterford. 

II. 

These smacksmen were a lusty crew; 

From Captain Zeb to cook-boy Ben, 
You could not find, or old or new, 

A better lot of fishermen. 
Each captain owned his fore-and-aft. 

And proud they were of all on board ; 
Each one admired his jaunty craft. 

These fishermen of Waterford. 

III. 
The harbor for these fishing fleets 

Was in the bend of Millstone Bight. 
Hither they came with rattling sheets. 

Whene'er with threat'ning storms affright ; 



SO.VGS OF THE SEA. 

Or from a cruise returning home, 
A little time could they afford, 

They ceased awhile the seas to roam, 
These fishermen of Waterford. 

IV. 

In winter time they stayed on shore, 

Their bonnie boats at anchor lay ; 
No lack had they of needed store. 

Though boating did not always pay. 
Their Httle farms did much supply, — 

Complainings were not often heard, — 
Their hands to work they could apply, 

These fishermen of Waterford. 

V. 

On winter nights they oft did meet. 

And cracking nuts would crack a joke, - 
Their sailor life they would repeat. 

As each to other kindly spoke. 
Unlike the sailor stereotyped, 

The drunken bout they all abhorred, — 
They did not dance while others piped, 

These fishermen of Waterford. 

VI. 

No jolly tars, but pious folk. 

As well became good watermen ; 

They often in the meetings spoke. 

Some preached a sermon now and then. 



SONGS OF THE SEA. 7 1 

Religion was a common theme, 

No more on land than when aboard ; 

Good people did them well esteem, 
These fishermen of Waterford. 



VII. 

But when the winter days were o'er. 

And fish began to crawl and swim, 
To nibble hooks and hug the shore, 

And through the briny billows skim, — 
Then smacks and boats were moved and manned, 

Provisions bought, and tackle stored, — 
Together sailed, together planned, 

These fishermen of Waterford. 

VIII. 

But where are now those sailor men? 

For scarce a sailboat there is left, 
Of all the smacks that fleeted then, — 

Many have gone, of life bereft. 
The waters were their winding sheet, 

They still are loved, their death deplored ; 
They 've joined the ocean's mystic fleet. 

Those fishermen of Waterford. 



POEMS OF NATURE 



POEMS OF NATURE. 75 



DAYBREAK. 

Deep silence is reigning o'er moor and o'er mountain, 
And nature still sleeps in the lap of repose ; 

But hark, there 's a stir of the leaf and the fountain, 
And consciousness thrills through the rock and the 
rose. 

There's a rumbling of wheels — King Phoebus is com- 
ing,— 

The maids of the morning, with timbrel and lute, 
Now dance on the mountains in raiment becoming, 

The heralds of day on their fash'nable route. 

The trumpeters, too, are beginning to fugle, — 
'T is the note of a bird, the hum of a bee ; 

Like the twang of a string, the trill of a bugle, 
The leaders are calling the grand minstrelsy. 

The orchestra wakens in tree-tops and bushes, 

The music now rings throughout forests and fields ; 

The pipe of the frog is still heard in the rushes. 

With the whippoorwill's sweet and mellifluous peals. 

Attention., battalions / 'T is the word of command 
From God, the Creator, Preserver of all ; 



76 POEMS OF NATURE. 

His vast army stretches to where his strong hand 
His signals he 's fixed on the outermost wall. 

Ye lords of creation, why now are ye sleeping ? 

Arouse ye and join with this army of song! 
Like soldiers who step to the drumming and fifing, 

Quick, quick into line, and be marching along. 



POEMS OF NATURE. J J 



THE MORNING DAWN. 

Beautiful dawn of the morning, 
Sweet as a prayer thy hush ; 

Changing from purple to crimson, — 
Red as a rose, thy bhish. 

Now are the stars in the concave 
Hung on thy heaving breast, 

Behind the blue curtains of heaven, 
Fading away to rest. 

Over the fields and the forests, 
Over the gray and green, 

Falleth the folds of thy mantle, 
Bordered with golden sheen. 

Soft as the notes of the birdHngs, 

Sweet as the balmy air, 
Pure as the heart of a virgin. 

The morning dawn is fair. 



78 POEMS OF NATURE. 



SUNSHINE. 

Music wakens with the morning, 
All is merry in the sunlight ; 
Silence cometh with the twilight, 
There is gloom until the dawning; 
There is healing where the sun shines, 
There is death-glare mid the shadows. 
Birds fly early to the meadows, 
From their roostings in the woodbines. 
List the hum around the beehives. 
Hear the droning of the insects! 
There is sunshine in their dialects, 
There is meaning in their short lives. 
O what beauty in the clear skies, — 
Smiles on smiles are in the sunrise. 



POEMS OF NA TURE. 79 



THE PRAIRIE. 

'T IS sunrise on the prairie sea, — 

A flood of glory rolls across, 
And wakes the choral orchestra, 

From branch and blade and velvet moss. 

'T is midday on the prairie sea, 

And torrid vapors fill the air; 
They move about but lazily. 

Beasts, birds and insects, foul and fair. 

'T is sunset on the prairie sea. 
And o'er it spreads a weird light. 

Engulfing all in mystery, — 

The strange divide 'twixt day and night. 

'T is midnight on the prairie sea, — 
The starlight glimmers cool and clear ; 

And in this dread immensity 

Deep silence sleeps and pale-faced fear. 



8o POEMS OF NA TURE. 



MY PRETTY SHEEP. 

Come, come with me this summer day ; 

My pretty sheep you have not seen. 
On yonder hills the lambkins play, 

And fragrant meadows intervene. 

Co'nan, Co'nan! the nannies hear ; 

The air is vocal with their cries. 
Come near, my sheep, there's naught to fear, 

And let us see your pretty eyes. 

No eye of beast or bird to me 

As yours, my sheep, is quite so fair : 

Within their mellow depths I see 
Beauties of earth and sky and air. 

Confiding pets, what royal grace 
In motion, form and language, too ! 

With heads erect and pleasant face. 
You ask me for the morsel due. 

Farewell awhile, my pretty sheep, 
Go forth and feed on hill and plain ; 

Your shepherd will his promise keep. 
And come and see you soon again. 



POEMS OF NA TURK. 8 I 



BIRDS OF AUTUMN. 

My birds are caged — just see the crowds! 

The cage is broad and deep and high ; 
Its bars are set behind the clouds, 

It swings from out the canopy. 

The hand that made it is divine, — 
The power that holds it is supreme. 

The birds themselves are yours and mine, - 
Their own the nests on bough and beam. 

Sing on, my pets, sing on, sing on : 
Ye know no tyrant's hard control. 

I see you mount the clouds upon. 
And fly the arch from pole to pole. 

Fly on, my pets, fly on, fly on ; 

Enjoy these bright autumnal days. 
Cold winter soon is coming on. 

When you must cease your pleasant lays. 

A birdless cage is winter time, 

But there 's a realm beyond the sky ; 

My birdies, in that faultless clime, 
I trust to see you by and by. 



82 POEMS OF NATURE. 

Like you, I 'm free, though once a slave. 
And hard I thrust against the bars ; 

But now I've ceased to rage and rave, 
And own the world from earth to stars. 



THE BIRD DANCE. 

The birdies fair are on the wing, — 
On bush and brake a moment sing; 
Then down the Hnes their partners bring, 

Then balance all ; 
Then dos-a-dos, and vis-a-vis, 
From fence to fence, and tree to tree, — 
They 're all in merry, merry glee, 

And mind each call. 

The catbird fiddles sharp and shrill, 
The robins give the treble trill, 
The sparrows peep and pipe at will. 

All join the chorus. 
These summer days, what music sweet! 
What joy now moves these nimble feet! 
This bird-dance is all but complete 

Each day before us. 



POEMS OF NA TURE. 83 



JUNE. 

'T IS June, 't is June, 't is leafy June ; 

The world is decked in emerald hues. 
Along the braes of bonny doon, 

Adown the vales of tender yews ; 
High o'er the hills of evergreen, 

Across the lowland everglade, 
With belts of forest in between. 

And all their billowy deeps of shade. 

'T is June, 't is June, 't is merry June, 

The world is full of music sweet. 
The bird-note chorus is in tune, 

The insect trills are just complete ; 
The zephyrs through the branches sing. 

The brooklets murmur as they flow : 
The voices of the children ring, 

As through the verdant vales they go. 

'T is June, 't is June, 't is balmy June, 

The air is filled with scent of flowers. 
All nature is in sweet attune 

And pleasant are her breezy bowers. 
The air is one vast odorous sea, 

Its waves of balm unceasing flow ; 
It is young Summer's ecstasy, 

And swift the fleeting moments go. 



84 POEMS OF NATURE. 



FOREST FLOWERS. 

In the gorges of the mountain?, 

Home of moose and sullen bear, 
By the sylvan streams and fountains, 

Flowers blossom sweet and fair. 
Where from out the bush to frighten, 

Tigers leap and lions roar. 
There, too, wild flow'rs bloom and brighten, 

And will grow on evermore. 

Pretty wild flow'rs, sweet the story 

Of your modest life to me ; 
Not in human praise and glory. 

Is your immortality. 
Angel eyes behold your blushes, 

Angel lips your nectar quaff. 
And beneath the towering rushes. 

Angels hear your merry laugh. 

Say not then, complaining mortal. 

Thou wert born to blush unseen ; 
Distant though the gates immortal, 

Rough the paths that intervene. 
Yet the holy angels see you, 

Mark each step of progress made ; 
To the heavenly flow'r-land lead you 

Through the sunshine and the shade. 



POEMS OF NA TURE. 85 



ST. JOHN'S RIVER, FLORIDA. 

Roll on, majestic river, 

Roll onward to the sea ; 
Thy patron saint, O river, 

May well be proud of thee. 
Thy bosom broad and brawny. 

Its throbbings deep and strong, 
So like the races tawny, 

That knew thee well and long. 

From out the high savannas, 

Midway this flowery land. 
By groves of tall bananas. 

Thou startest for the strand ; 
Thy banks are forest shaded. 

With moss and myrtle hung. 
Where beasts have promenaded. 

And birds for ages sung. 

But old and new are mating, 

Thou canst no more elude 
The eyes now penetrating 

Thy ancient solitude. 
Yet sweet is thy submission, 

Change is, and is to be. 
Thou changest not : thy mission 

Still takes thee to the sea. 



86 POEMS OF NA TURK. 

A life of true progression. 

Like thine, man's life should be ; 
No words of proud profession, 

But onward, bold and free. 
Then roll, majestic river. 

Roll onward to the sea. 
Till ends thy race, O river. 

When time shall cease to be. 



POEMS OF NA TURK. 8 7 



THE MESSAGE OF THE SNOWFLAKES. 

Ho, ye snowflakes, light and fair, 
Falling slowly through the air, 
What the message ye declare ? 

Hear us, sons of men, we pray : 
This is what we have to say: 
Heaven 's not far from earth away. 

As we come with truth to you, 
Be ye each to other true, — 
'T is a debt oft overdue. 

Field and forest, mountain height, 
Mantled are in purest white ; 
Being pure be your delight. 

As in gentleness we fall. 

Be ye gentle, each and all, — 

To the erring gently call. 

Ever helpful we would be. 

Clothe the land, shield vine and tree : 

This the rule for thine and thee. 

Lines of beauty ye can trace. 

In each snowflake's crystal face, — 

Heaven's beauty yours should grace. 



88 POEMS OF NA TURK. 

Melted in the vernal sun, 

To the sea we straightway run ; 

Where are ye, your life-work done? 

We from earth to heaven rise, 
Again returning from the skies : 
Such our message to the wise. 



PATRIOTIC 



THE REFRAIN OF FREEDOM. 

Metiwrial Day. 

I. 

FAIR COLUMBIA. 

When night primeval o'er the realms of space 
Her tireless vigils kept, without a star to grace 

The sable canopy, 
Let there be light ! then through the welkin rung. 
While sun and moon and stars appeared and sung 
The diatonic scale of systems, strung 

To chords of harmony. 

Across that traverse where eternal day 
Gleams o'er creation's lofty pillars, lay 

The paths of Deity ; 
And nature then beneath his watchful eye. 
Unrolled the canvas of her deep blue sky, — 
An ocean vast, whose azure borders lie 

Along Eternity. 

The sons of God, Time's morning stars, then sang, 
Throughout the universe their plaudits rang 

In sweetest minstrelsy ; 
But most of all they praised the primal pair, 
Created in Jehovah's likeness fair. 
Progenitors of Freemen everywhere. 

Plumed knights of history. 



92 ' PATRIOTIC. 

But moral night soon chased the hght away, — 
The night seized on the morning of the day, 

And Freedom suffered then ; 
For ages dark with bondage, hate and crime. 
Rolled on apace o'er every land and clime, 
On past the middle march of busy time. 

Till Fortune smiled again. 

'T was then, decades of years ago, the light 
Of Freedom burst upon earth's cheerless night. 

Long night of tyranny ! 
Then fair Columbia out of chaos sprang. 
The Morning Stars again together sang ; 
This song of Thirteen Constellations rang 

In notes of harmony : 

O God of freedom, thee we praise. 
For thine are ever freedom's ways : 
Our starry flag, to freedom true, 
Shall wear the Red, the White, the Blue. 

We pledge ourselves, our lives and all, 
By freedom's shrine to stand or fall : 
For these we '11 brave the battle shock, 
With hearts as firm as Plymouth Rock. 

To British king we bow no more. 
The King of kings we now adore ; 
As freemen whom the truth makes free. 
Our name shall traverse land and sea. 



PATRIOTIC. 93 

Star after star to Freedom's banner clung ; 

And Freedom's songs by freemen now were sung, 

In joy and praise therefor, 
Till slavery, lurking in the sultry South, 
Drew, as if parched with burning fever's droutli. 
Some of our stars adown her dragon mouth, 

And lit the torch of war. 

For four long years the sons of Freedom fought, 
And with their blood a lasting Union bought, — 

Each drop demands a tear; 
For those who fought and fell, we weep this day, — 
The loyal wore the blue, the rest the gray ; 
Our victory came before the flowers of Ma}', 

To brighten up the year. 

II. 

DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
Ode. 
I. 
But hark ! the bells are tolUng ; 

From every steeple-top and tower. 
From Lakes to Gulf are rolling 

Upon the eve of victory's hour. 
The waves a-wild with grief and woe. 

The peals that wake through brake and bower, 
The cry of hearts with love aglow, 
Lamenting at the death, O fate. 
Of Lincoln, our Chief Magistrate. 



94 



r A TRIO TIC. 



Attend, chiefs of the nation, 

And all the wheels of state be stilled ; 
Stop now cold legislation, 

And be with consternation filled; 
Bedeck yourselves in mourning deep, 

Our richest blood has now been spilled, 
And o'er our fallen Chieftain w^ep ; 

Let every window, door and gate, 

Mourn for our lost Chief Magistrate. 

III. 
Dark the shadow, dark and slow, — 

Eclipse is total in our land. 
As the mourners come and go, 

In silence take each others hand ; 
That hand impulsed by warmest heart, 

Which freed our slaves by act so grand. 
Shall feel no more its pulses start 

Till Life shall break Death's iron gate. 

And crown our loved Chief Magistrate. 

IV. 

Weep, ye mourning millions, weep, 
Till tears shall like a river be ; 

Sleep, O Prince of Freedom, sleep. 
The sons of freedom sleep with thee. 

Tlie winds are wild, the sun looks cold, 
When death maintains his firm decree. 



PATRIOTIC. 

By battle lines in vale and wold ; 

His claims embrace the small and great, 
The soldier and the Magistrate. 

III. 

OUR MARTIAL DEAD. 

Sleep on, brave men, since v/ell ye wrought, 

And now the strife is ended. 
The noble truths for which ye fought 

Most fully were defended : 
War ne'er espoused a nobler cause 
Than freedom, Union and good laws. 

On plains, and hills, and river banks, 

On lake, and gulf, and ocean, 
Ye fell from out the melting ranks, 

Mid war's most dread commotion ; 
Beneath the sod, beneath the dew. 
Our fairest garlands are for you. 

Sleep on, brave boys, your dreamless sleep, 

Until the bugle waketh, — 
Till through Time's vast mysterious deep 

The light of morning breaketh ; 
'T is ours who live to watch and wait, 
With hearts prepared for any fate. 

The years go by. Ah! who can tell 
How much each cycle meaneth. 



95 



96 PATRIOTIC. 

As waves of sorrow sink and swell, 

And light through darkness gleameth ? 
Our dead have found their- long repose, 
One martyr more now crowns our woes. 

From battle-field to council-hall, 

From senator to president. 
Our Garfield comes, beloved by all ; 

This star of freedom upward went, 
Till from our sky he paled and died, 
The victim of the presicide. 

In vain, alas ! the healing art, 

In vain, the ocean's balmy shore ; 

The pulses in that patriot heart, 

Grew faint and stopped forever more. 

1 hey closed for aye those love-lit eyes, — 

That noble form was death's own prize. 



IV. 

DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 
A Threnody. 
I. 
Elberon, fair Elberon, close by the blue sea. 

How softly the cold waves rolled on to thy shore. 
When down through the mists and the darkness that 
hid thee. 
The sad Angel of Death came down to thy door, — 



PATRIOTIC. 97 

When he placed his broad seal on the good and the 

great, 
And our Garfield, dear Garfield, lay resting in state. 

II. 
Elberon, dear Elbeion, close by the blue sea, 

How gently thy zephyrs came off from the main. 
To mingle with zephyrs rising up from the lea. 

To look on the form racked no longer with pain ; 
Why, oh ! why could ye not, with your fresh vigor rife. 
Set again the still pulses to throbbing with hfe ? 

III. 
Elberon, sad Elberon, close by the blue sea. 

How soft were thy footsteps, how gentle thy tread ! 
And they heard but thy whispers when, bending the 
knee. 
Thou pour'st out thy grief by the now sainted dead; 
With widow and children sat a mourner-in-chief, 
And darkly about thee drew the drapings of grief 

IV. 

Elberon, lone Elberon, close by the blue sea, 
Let thy mirth and thy music forever be stilled, 

For dearer by far than thy beauties can be 

Is the life-blood so sweet an assassin has spilled ; 

And let thy glad summers to winters be turned. 

And the offers of pastime and pleasures be spurned. 



98 PATRIOTIC. 

V. 

O Elberon, Elberon, close by the blue sea, 

A halo of sadness encircles th}- name ; 
The pilgrims that offer true homage to thee. 

Throughout the long years of thy sorrow-filled fame, 
Will tenderly love thee, and reverence thy grief. 
As the shrine where a nation laments for her Chief. 



V. 

BURIAL OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 
A Recjuiem. 

But see now, out of th" Executive ]\Iansion, 

Out from the turmoil and business of state, 
Slowly advancing, the funeral procession 

Bears the remains of the good and the great. 
A President, a Soldier, a Christian was he, 
Ours now the loss is, to him is the victory. 
Bury him solemnly, 
Bury him royally, 
Lay him down grandly to rest ; 
Cover him tearfully. 
Cover him gorgeously. 
Make the arch high o'er his breast. 
Now stilled be the murmur, dispelled be the gloom, 
Our President sleeps in the hush of the tomb. 



PATRIOTIC. 99 

II. 
As Soldier, we move him at tap of the drum ; 

From out the grim guns a salvo awakes, 
And platoons of musketry, sulph'rous and glum, 
And echoes of bells through the boughs and the 
brakes, 
Mark the sad hour this Chieftain is laid to his rest, 
And the coffin-lid covers his now pulseless breast. 
Bury him soldierly. 
Bury him martially. 
Lay him down proudly to rest : 
Cover him tearfully, 
Cover him loyally. 
Place the lid firm on his breast. 
Now stilled be the murmur, dispelled be the gloom. 
Our General sleeps in the hush of the tomb. 

III. 
But brighter than pageant in silver and gold. 
Now gather unseen the bright angel bands. 
To uplift the dark pall, as when Moses of old 
Was borne to the grave by mystical hands ; 
'T is a Christian we bury with honors of state, 
And a Christian as good as the Statesman is great. 
Then bury him slowly, 
Bury him lovingly. 
Lay him down gently to rest ; 
Cover him tenderly. 
Cover him carefully. 
Lay the lid soft on his breast. 



I OO PA TRIO TIC. 

And stilled be the murmur, dispelled be the gloom, 
A Christian now sleeps in the hush of the tomb. 

VI. 

DECORATION DAY. 

The years agone, long years ago, 
x\nd fast these years have fled ; 
Our armies struck the final blow. 
Secession bowed its head. 
The bo}'s in blue. 
And gray suits, too, 
Threw up their caps with much ado, 
Rejoiced to think the war was through. 

That strife some day will be forgot. 

The cause that lost, as well ; 
But shower with tears each sacred spot 
Where brave combatants fell. 
With garlands grace 
Each burial place ; 
Here North and South stand face to face, 
As once in war, now to embrace. 

Then decorate with flowers to-day 

The soldier's last retreat ; 
The years agone, the last of May, 
Our victory was complete. 
The buds we know, 
Began to blow. 



PATRIOTIC. lOI 

The grass and grain began to grow, 
Our rivers ceased their purple flow. 

The cause that won was won for all, — 

Its foe should be its friend ; 
'T was slavery's deep and damning thrall 
That found the bitter end. 
Awake, ye slain, 
From hill and plain, 
Hear Freedom's deep and wild refrain, — 
Its numbers surge and surge again. 

The dead should be our nation's trust. 

The wayward and the true ; 
They sprang from out our common dust. 
E'en those who doffed the blue. 
From Northern bound. 
The South around, 
i^he Stars and Stripes alone are found : 
Our whole domain is Freedom's ground. 



I02 PATRIOTIC. 



RETURNING THE FLAG. 

A company of Virginia Cadets returned a captured Union 
tlag to the veteran survivors of the 164th Regiment, New York 
Volunteers, at their annual reunion in 1883. 

The din of war on old Virginia's shore, 
The tramp of armies, and the cannon's roar. 
Ceased long ago, and Peace with noiseless tread. 
And sylvan voice, where sleep the nameless dead. 
Has waked to life the farmer's merry song, 
And pushed the right a score of years along. 

Virginia's soldier boys have doffed the gray 

And donned the blue, in honor bright, for aye, — 

Her stars and bars a dusty corner keep. 

But see ! the stars and stripes are in the heap, — 

The "N. Y. V." by bullets badly rent — 

" One Hundred Sixty-four," the regiment. 

The boys in blue who bore the flag that day, 
Remember well the boys who fought in gray ; 
And in encampments, year by year relate, 
Their colors lost, how hard their luckless fate, 
Their ranks reduced by ball and bayonet, 
Where hand to hand the closing columns met. 



PATRIOTIC. 103 

And will they e'er that long lost banner see ? 
In vain the thought, this, this can never be. 
But look ! Who comes ? Virginia's Cadets, 
With martial tread and flashing bayonets. 
Thev bring our flag from out their arsenal gates, 
A pledge of friendship 'twixt two sister states. 

Hail, grand old state ! the home of presidents ; 
With joy and pride we take thy compliments, 
To lesser states, how like a central sun ; 
In war and peace, how like thy Washington! 
To every state thy gallant lesson brings 
The fragrant essence of sublimer things. 
On battle-fields where states discordant met 
By crimson streams with battle's carna,ge fret, 
The grass grows rank, and flowers of deepest dye. 
And streams like crystal murmur gently by: 
Distracted borders once with foernen filled 
By sons of peace are now in safety tilled. 

For present wrongs, the future makes amends, — 
Where woe expires, there tender pity ends. 
The sweetest rose by sharpest thorn is set, — 
More honored far than fragrant mignonette. 
War gives to peace its cup of ruby wine, 
The storm to calm the beams that brightest shine. 



I04 PATRIOTIC. 



GENERAL SHERIDAN'S LAST RIDE. 

" 'T IS six miles to Arlington, from St. Matthew's 

gate!"* 
So said the bystanders, for they thought it was late. 
To line moves a caisson, well flagged and darkly 

serged. 
From the block starts the war-horse to battle oft urged ; 
He 's accoutred and holstered, but riderless to-day, 
His master's in the catafalque, over the way. 

"'Tis six miles to Arlington, from St. Matthew's 

gate ! " 
How quickly he 'd make it, if not riding in state! 
'* Attention, battalion I Forward, march, by the right I " 
On to Arlington, he 'd march, to Arlington's Height. 
Now there's booming of cannon, the drum's muffled 

beat, 
The flash of the carbines, the slow tramping of feet. 

'*'Tis six miles to Arlington, from St. Matthew's 

gate ! " 
Ye captains and colonels, for what do ye now wait ? 
How oft, foot in stirrup, and reins in his hand. 
Has your General shouted the word of command ! 
Will he into the saddle now suddenly spring ? 
Will that voice, like the thunder, o'er battlements ring ? 

*St. Matthew's Church, Washington, D. C. 



PATRIOTIC. 105 

" 'T is six miles to Arlington, from St. Matthew's 

gate!" 
What a forming of priests in this martial estate, — 
CiviHans and soldiers are mingled to-day ; 
Did Sheridan ride e'er to battle this way? 
Ah ! his battles are ended — the leader is led, — 
Our Commander is fallen — our Gen'ral is dead. 

" 'T is six miles to Arlington, from St. Matthew's 

gate ! "' 
Move promptly, ride slowly, be it early or late. 
Go bury the soldier, with war's honors crowned. 
Thrice honored his mem'ry, and hallowed his mound ; 
Sleep, Soldier, sleep, till the bugle shall call 
Up to army headquarters, our brave soldiers all. 



I06 PATRIOTIC. 



AMONG THE S TARS. 

Farewell to my dear native state, 

Farewell a while to home : 
I soon shall pass the outer gate 

Through other states to roam. 
In north or south, in east or west, 

Where'er my lot shall be, 
The states that love the Union best. 

Shall be the states for me. 

I look with pride the long lines through. 

From east to western shore ; 
Each state a star in azure blue, 

And room enough for more. 
As shine the stars with varying lights, 

Like these our own may be ; 
But states that stand for human rights 

Shall be the stars for me. 

I love full well the beacon hills, 

By fair New England's shore, — 
The mossy rocks a.nd sparkling rills, 

That dot the landscape o'er. 
Here Liberty her flag flung out. 

Here first the crimson sea. 
The states that dare for right to shout 

Are just the states for me. 



PATRIOTIC. 107 

From Alleghenys Chestnut Peak, 

From Erie to me Sound, 
From Lake Champlain to Chesapeake, 

AVe tread historic ground. 
Here Freedom sosved her tender seeds. 

When first she left the sea. 
The states best known for noble deeds 

Shall be the states for me. 

I love as well the vast Northwesi", 

Its cities grand and great : 
Its pleasant homes with plenty blest, — 

An honor to the state ; — 
Its rivers bright, and broad, and long, 

Its prairies like the sea. 
The states that vote for tempVance strong 

Are just the states for me. 

Sweet sunny South, my heart is thrilled 

With pleasant ihoughts of thee. 
On many a page by memory filled 

Thy face so bright I see. 
But fancy oft with visions wild. 

From gulf to lakes will flee. 
The states with honor undetiled. 

Shall be the states for me. 

Across the Rockies to the coast, 

Or down the Madre mild, 
These metallurgic states may boast 

A country rich, though wild. 



I08 PATRIOTIC. 

Here men have found, from every land, 

The land of liberty. 
The states that give a friendly hand 

Shall be the states for me. 

1 greet as well the new Northwest, — 

The young stars of our sky ; 
In make and manners like the rest, 

In aspirations high ; 
Like East like West, and all between, 

For God and liberty. 
The last to join the old Thirteen, 

Are just the states for me. 

From towering pines to bonny brakes, 

From Maine to Mexico, 
From coast to coast, from gulf to lakes, 

The mighty currents flow. 
Our country wears a pleasant smile, 

Where'er our footsteps roam ; 
Or here, or there, we rest awhile. 

In every state at home. 

Between two mighty oceans bound, 

Between two foreign lands, 
Our four-and-forty states are found. 

Now joining friendly hands. 
Long may they in each other trust, — 

An empire large and free. 
Our states with laws so wise and just 

Are just the states for me. 



PATRIOTIC. 109 



HEART OF HEARTS. 

On loved Shelley's urn, whose sacred ashes lie 
Embosomed in Rome, a brother poet's by. 
The brief motto is graved, a sober y?// mot : 
Cor Cordium, — how Hke the stilled heart below! 

Aye, 'tis "heart of hearts," the reverent truth subHme, 

Deep chiseled by the untiring hand of time. 

On lives philanthropic, on such lives alone, 

A tribute more lasting than tablets of stone. 

The bond of life's concord when concord there be. 

Like the sap that ])ervades all parts of the tree, 

Must live in the blood that is common to all, 

Consanguinity links the Greek and the Gaul. 

The nigrum pig7nentum will color the face. 

But blood has one color, no matter what race. 

The Erebus and Terror steamed out to sea, — 
Sir John commanding the little argosy. 
A northwestern passage he hoping to find. 
Through oceans of icebergs he pushed along blind ; 
While Englishmen waited with patience and pride. 
To hear how he conquered the wind and the tide. 

But the months grew long and no tidings came back, — 
No message could reach him on his wreck-strewn track : 
Then sympathy rose up, like sea billows high. 
And tears for Sir Franklin wet many an eye. 



no PATRIOTIC. 

And now other shi|)S sailed to rescue the lost, 

To share in the perils of tempest and frost ; 

And many lands labored the v/ork to complete, 

Till hundreds have found there a white winding-sheet. 

In deep crystal coffins beside the cold main, 

American seamen, by English and Dane, 

And Frenchm.an and Swede, too, throughout the long 

gloom, 
Are sleepmg away the long sleej) of the tomb. 
Though death in all regions delight eth to d-.vell, 
His coming makes common man's sorrows as well; 
At the door of the tomb death brings us to see 
That all men are kindred, as brothers should be. 

So when to our Garfield the death summons came, 
The hearts of all peoples were kindled to flame ; 
And kindred and stranger close followed his bier, 
And the rainbow that arched each crystal-hke tear 
Was the prismatic glow of brotherhood true, — 
'T was the sunHght of love that glowed in each hue. 
Though the hands of the few tlien bore up the pall, 
Yet his life mirrored hes in the hearts of us all : 
And the rocks and the rills, the waves and the sky, 
Will echo his fame, and his name cannot die. 
Good actions are with immortality rife, 
And the heart of hearts is immortal as life. 



O heart of hearts, sublime like mountains high; 
O heart of hearts, like oceans broad and deep ; 



PATRIOTIC. Ill 

O heart of hearts, immense as is the sky, — 
O heart of hearts, how infinite thy sweep ! 

11. 

Thou canst all people for thy brothers claim. 

Thou hast all countries for thy native land ; 
All tongues pronounce thy well-remembered name, 

And prince and plebe will take thy proffered hand. 

III. 
Fond mother earth thy mortal frame will take. 

And on her bosom lay thee down to rest ; 
But in the morning bright thou wilt awake, 

And life eternal fill thy heaving breast. 

IV. 

If to the winds we fling hfe's bitter gall, 

Then on each tomb this mo^to men will write : 

"MaHce toward none, and charity for all," — 
Here lies the heart of hearts with love bedight. 



112 PATRIOTIC. 



THE FATHERLAND. 

This is my native land ; yes, I with pride 
Do call it my dear native land, — 't is mine. 

My fathers sealed it thus with blood, they died 
To make it theirs. All others I resign. 

My children's it shall be — land of the free ; 

Sweet land of liberty, I joy in thee. 

But whose the fatherland? Not mine, nor thine, 
Through deeds of valor by our fathers wrought, 

Nor ours because all others we resign. 

Nor yet because its battles we have fought. 

And say, 't is of the brave and free the land, 

And swear forever by its flag to stand. 

To the true heart the fatherland belongs, 

The base in heart and life — and such there be — 

Are ahens in all lands ; not theirs the songs 
Of patriot love and life and hberty. 

Good deeds and noble of true hearts are born. 

And these alway the fatherlands adorn. 

The fatherland, it has forefather's day, — 
The day on which its circHng years began ; 

The ship of state with cables cut away. 

And course well laid, then seaward bounding ran. 

Though angry storms its trackless way assail. 

It weathers all and safe outrides the gale. 



FA TRIO TIC. I I 1 

The fatherland not every one can claim, 
Not anarchists, nor culprits, aliens, slaves. 

Misanthropists with hellish hate aflame. 

Nor those who live apart in dens and caves, 

Barbarians, misogamists, and all 

Whose selfish hearts are bitter as the gall. 

The fatherland to those alone belongs 

Whose trusty steps its paths historic tread, — 

Who make its cause their own, and write its songs, 
And bind in one the living and the dead. 

Who love the home, the church, the school, the state. 

Securing peace and thrift for small and great. 

Dear fatherland, and may I call thee mine. 
If so my heart is true and deeds are good ? 

And wilt thou claim me as thy son — yes, thine! — 
And so the bond be always understood, 

That to true hearts the fatherlands belong, 

And virtuous deeds demand the valorous song ? 

Then all good angels help us good to be, 
And true of heart, and wise as well as good. 

And then where'er we dwell, by land or sea, 
We shall possess the grace of brotherhood, 

And all the good will take us by the hand. 

And we shall never lack a fatherland. 



HEART AND HOME 



COR CORDIUM. 

O Heart of Hearts, thine is a matchless name ! 
O Heart of Hearts, if such thy nature be. 
Then nature holds thee as a prodigy, — 
'T is eminence in glory or in shame. 
The Heart of Hearts, oh ! what a wondrous thing ! 
Upon its throbs what anxious hopes depend, — 
Upon its will what willing slaves attend ; 
Around its life what deathless interests cling ! 
Its outer life discerning eyes may scan, 
But who can know its being's mystery ? 
Dark as the caverns of the deep blue sea. 
Not seraph high, nor angel yet, nor man : 
God knows the Heart of Hearts, and only God 
Knows when to smile and when to use the rod. 



I I 8 HEAR T AND HOME. 



TWILIGHT VISIONS OF HOME. 

As fair as the evening, as soft as the starHght, 

As pure as the moonbeams, as sweet as the calm. 
Are my visions of home, in the flush of the twiHght, 

Now sweeping around me like oceans of balm. 
Yes, bright are these visions of home and its loved ones ; 

Like yon starry group beaming forth from afar, 
A bright constellation is home and its loved ones : 

Each one in the concave shines out like a star. 

A spirit comes o'er me of rev'rence and worship, — 
Like the deep pensive silence when one is alone ; 
And the thoughts and the feehngs are as tender as 
courtship, 
And the world all around is as still as a stone. 
What wonder men worship ,the saints and the star- 
zones, 
Since these are reflections of God over all ; 
Or of home make a heaven with its pure ones, its 
loved ones. 
And yield themselves up to the power of its thrall ! 



HEAR T AND HOME. I 1 9 



WELL SPOKEN. 

She spake it slowly, 
And said it lowly, 
But all so truly, — 

I love you ! 
Accepted duly, 
It is love's story, 
Ablaze with glory, 

Through and through. 

She said it sighing, — 
Yea, almost crying, — 
Heart soft and kindly : 

I love you! 
'T was not said blindly; 
'T was spoken sweetly. 
But spoken meetly, 

And 't is true. 



I 2 O HE A RT AND HOME. 



MY BIRD HAS FLOWN. 

There came to dwell 

A birdie in my home ; 
I loved it well, 

And thought it ne'er would roam. 

The cage is left, — 

My bird has flown away ; 

And I, bereft, 

Now mourn from day to day. 

My cheery bird 

Did sweetly sing to me ; 
No more is heard 

Her cooing minstrelsy. 

A beck'ning hand, 

An angel's shining face, 

A strong command, 

And birdie left the place. 

Beyond the stars 

She flew on tireless wing ; 
Behind the bars 

No more to sit and sing. 



HEAR T AND HOME. i 2 I 

I miss her so, 

My birdie, sweet and fair : 
Where'er I go 

I long to find her there. 

I look in vain 

Amid the lovely throng ; 
But look again, 

And list each mellow song. 

I hope some day 

To find my bird again ; 
The ides of May 

Will bring us summer then. 

Till then, farewell ! 

Mid Eden's bowers to sing, 
There, birdie, dwell 

With birds of kindred wing. 



I 2 2 HEAR T AND HOME. 



THE PHANTOM. 

Silent as an angel's footfall, 

Hear I now thy mystic tread. 
O thou Phantom, frail and fragile. 

Thou, the shadow of the dead I 
Form and features of a loved one. 

Long since gone to dreamless rest : 
Gentle as an infant's breathings 

Are the heavings of thy breast. 

Radiant as the locks of Phoebus 

Floating in the morning air, 
Golden as the gates of glory 

Are the tresses of thy hair. 
Moving toward me through the ether 

With a seraph's nameless grace, 
Pleasant as an angel's visage 

Is the smile upon thy face. 

Mellow as the summer twilight 

Is the lustre of thine eyes ; 
Soft and blue as heaven's arches 

Painted on Italian skies. 
Would at least that thou could'st whisper, 

Could'st enfold me in thine arms ; 
But thou hast not life nor language : 

Thou hast only phantom charms. 



HEART AND HOME. 

But thy presence gives me pleasure, — 

Pleasure 't is at least in part ; 
Thrill and thrall to life are wedded. — 

Phantoms do not trance the heart. 
But in thee I see the living, 

One who lived, and loved, and died ; 
Wearing now divinest beauty, 

Her own beauty glorified. 



124 ^ HEART AND HOME. 



SHE COMES BETIMES. 

Oft in my day-dreams, visions sweet. 
One fairest of the fair sex rises : 

As true friends we each other greet, 
With melting looks and glad surprises. 

Our glances meet and make good cheer, — 
We catch the inspiration given ; 

Not clearer to the inner ear 

Is voiced the blissful speech of heaven. 

Our hearts grow warm, our souls are thrilled 
The world to us seems brighter far. 

With friendship pure each breast is filled. 
To life is linked a lucky star. 

She comes betimes, with sweetest face, 

A well-bred lady all must love ; 
Advancing with a matchless grace, 

And voice as sweet as pensive dove. 

'T is visit welcome ; glad am I 

In day-dreams e'en to see her face ; 

She does not scornful pass me by, 
Nor greet me with a fond embrace. 



HEART AND HOME. 

She tells me of her joys and fear?, — 
Her heart is open as the skies ; 

She often melts my orbs to tears. 
By floods that fill her weeping eyes. 



She sees with dread the evil times 
That hang impending o'er the world : 

Secessions, wars, and nameless crimes, 

"Gainst which the wrath of heaven is hurled. 

She trembles for the church of God, 
Lest Zion's watchmen fall asleep, — 

Lest saints provoke the slumbering rod, 
And sinners wake in woe to weep. 

But home "s the burden of her heart, — 
Her loved ones know her tender care. 

She does not fail to do her part, — 
Her loves and labors chiefly there. 

Her life is not howe'er all tears, — 

It is a Beulah land as well. 
Her hopes outmeasure all her fears, — 

She does not on life's dark side dwell. 

She sees a God of love and power. 
Who brings about his sovereign will ; 

She notes his wonders, hour by hour, 
And knows that truth will triumph still. 



125 



I 2 6 HEAR T AND HOME. 

Then come betimes, O vision fair, 
And bring the lady all must love, 

Advancing with a seraph's air 

And voice as sweet as pensive dove. 



JUST FOURTEEN. 

Haste, waning night ! Hail, natal morn ! 
This is the day our girl was born. 
Since then the years have come between, 
For now our girl is just fourteen. 
Happy for thee have been the years, 
Many the joys and few the tears, 
Many the comforts, few the cares, — 
Thou blessed child of many prayers. 

Happy for us have been the years, — 
Our faith was stronger than our fears, — 
That thou the good and true would'st choose, 
The false and vain always refuse. 
We ponder oft the happy thought 
That thou the Saviour early sought ; 
Let not the promise be forgot, 
And happy is thy future lot. 



HEAR T AND HOME. I 2 7 



LADY FAIR AND TRUE. 

These tribute lines, fair lady, are for you ; 
Your heart, we know, is tender, warm and true. 
We see you now and then upon the street, — 
Sometimes our hands, more oft our glances meet; 
As mid the various walks of hfe you go, 
Your moods and manners, lady, please us so. 

The hall, the home, the hamlet, house of prayer, 
Are brighter far to all when you are there ; 
The festive board would rarely have been spread, 
Had you with royal grace the way not led 
In beauteous garb, with ornaments displayed, 
And better still, with modesty arrayed. 

Your voice is music, — nature's gift to thee : 

To hear it fills our hearts with ecstacy. 

Attendant angels Hsten when you sing, 

And viewless, noiseless fold each silken wing. 

The sick revive, and dying men rejoice, 

To see you pass, to hear your pleasant voice. 

Life's mission work, so noble, grand and true, 
Is ably wrought by helpers such as you, 
In home, sweet home, to woman's heart so dear. 
In church and school, with naught of ill to fear ; 



I 2 8 HEAR T AND HOME. 

With faith sublime, with hopes undimmed you tread 
Life's paths among the Uving and the dead. 

Would that we might some worthier tribute pay, — 
Far better Hnes we hope to send some day ; 
For in our inmost soul with joy we know 
Your life, fair lady, makes our graces grow, — 
Helps us to choose the better, nobler part. 
And benedictions go from heart to heart. 



O TROUBLED HEART. 

O TROUBLED heart, how like the sea ! — 

As deep, as vast, as restless, too ; 

By adverse currents running through, 

A world withal of mystery, 

But not without its guiding clue ; 

O troubled heart, we gaze on thee, 

And wish thee peace, if peace there be. 

Yes, troubled heart, though Hke the sea, 
Whose restless waters surge and roll, 
Down to the fountains of thy soul 
The power that stilled wild Galilee 
Shall grasp the reins of firm control ; 
No storms shall rise from main or lea, — 
All through thy life the calm shall be. 



HE A RT A ND HOME. I 2 9 



MY LADDIE. 

My laddie comes ayant the hills, 
He comes alang the Brechin rills, 
And love and truth his bosom fills 

For his highland lassie ; 
With his hunting suit and gear, 
He 's gone to chase the bounding deer. 
And naught has he indeed to fear, — 

Neither has his lassie. 

Hark, hark ! I hear his sounding horn, 
A-clanging through the breezy morn ; 
Now leaps the deer through bush and thorn 

On the heights of Eyrie. 
So gang a-glee, with right good will, 
Amang the crags of Forfar Hill ; 
Haste, laddie, haste! I wait thee still, — 

Haste to greet thy lassie. 



He comes, he comes, from out the clear, 
His shoulders bear the smitten deer, 
His gentle voice I soon shall hear. 

Welcome to his lassie. 
He to truth and honor bred 
Will his darling lassie wed, 
For the plight is duly said, — 

Welcome, then, my laddie. 



HEART AND HOME. 

Robbie is my laddie, O ! 
Lassie ne'er had braver beau 
Than my laddie, Robbie, O ! 
My Robbie. 



THOSE BONNIE BLUE EYES. 

Ah, those sparkling blue eyes. 

Bright, bright as the sunrise! 

Animation they bring, 

They provoke us to sing, — 
Those sparkling blue eyes constrain us to smile ; 

For ne'er can sadness dwell, 

Beneath their magic spell : 

As hoar-frost melts away. 

Before the king of day. 
So feels the heart their melting power the while. 

Yes, those bonnie blue eyes. 

With the blue of the skies, — 

They almost compel thee 

A lover true to be 
Of the lassie who owns those bonnie blue eyes : 

She 's a treasure untold, 

More precious far than gold ; 

To win her, laddies, try, 

There "s heaven in her eye. 
And happy 's the lad that winneth the prize. 



HE A RT A ND HOME. I 3 I 



THE MYSTIC FACE. 

The image of a face I see, — 
Ofttimes it kindly greeteth me ; 
In pensive hours it comes to stay, 
At others, halts, then flits away. 

It is a fond, familiar face, — 
It wears alway the same sweet grace ; 
'T is not the smile that Hghts a star, 
'T is something more expressive far. 

'T is mirrored deep in memory's case, — 
No other one has seen that face : 
No other one that face can see 
As it appears always to me. 

The months and years have fled apace, 
Since first I saw that magic face ; 
The milHon faces I have seen 
Come not that face and me between. 

Come, image of the mystic face. 
And run with me hfe's shortening race ; 
'T is sweet to live, 't is sweet to die. 
If thou, sweet face, art only nigh. 



HEART AND HOME. 



MY FATHER'S PICTURE. 

Ah ! here it is, that face, that face ! 

The artist, with divinest call, 
Has pictured out its facial grace, — 

Like life it seems here on my wall. 

It is, indeed, behind the glass, 

Like one who used to love me so ; 

He smiles upon me, as I pass, — 
He sees me as I come and go. 

That presence breathes a holy calm 
Within my agitated breast ; 

It pours a precious healing balm 
Upon my spirit's long unrest. 

I ne'er shall pass this hallowed place 
Without a recognition sweet : 

No spoken word, but face to face 
Our loving glances surely meet. 

I never can from virtue stray, — 
A foe to goodness and to truth : 

I hear that father fondly say : 

Obey th' instructions of your youth. 



HEART AND HOME. 

When trials hard my heart appall 
And angry clouds the sky o'ercast, 

That placid face will from the wall 

Speak out : My boy, 't will soon be past. 

Dear father, 't was your upright ways, 
Your steady hand and tireless will, 

That give thee in these distant days 
The power to guide and mould me still. 

I, too, shall hear death's ruthless tread, — 
Before that mower's scythe shall fall ; 

What shall I teach, when I am dead, — 
A picture on the cottage wall ? 



I 3 4 HE A RT A ND HOME . 



MOTHER LOVE. 

Joys there are in motherhood, — 
Great the sorrow, greater good ; 
Virgin Mary's blessed Son 
Caps the climax : 'T is well done ! 

Jesus knows this mother love. 
Known on earth and known above ; 
Heart full of it to the brim, 
Draweth he all men to him. 

Jesus dying, tender one : 
Woman, says he, see thy son. 
Then to John : Thy mother see, 
Take her home to live with thee. 

Children, learn to love your race, — 
Mother lips have kissed each face ; 
Be they weak or be they wild, 
>Jother arms have held each child. 

Sons of earth, in ruin deep, 
Mother eyes for you oft weep; 
Think ye of those broken hearts, 
Stricken through with Sorrow's darts. 



HE A RT AND HOME. I 3 5 

Ye seducers of the youth, 
Are ye lost to honor, truth ? 
If ye do not love the child, 
Do not drive the mother wild. 

Mothers, ye who mourn for sons, 
Wayward as the fallen ones, — 
Do not doubt thy mother power : 
Hope for them a better hour. 

Father, God, O mother earth ! 
Blessings are there not in birth ? 
Answer sweet, it stilleth pain : 
Mortals may be born again. 

Happy homes when love is there. 
Loving mothers everywhere ; 
Saintly ones of priceless worth, 
Pleasant homes they make on earth. 

Happy, too. will heaven be, — 
Clouds of mothers there we "11 see : 
In this mother bond so sweet. 
Heaven and earth together meet. 



3 6 HE A RT A ND HOME. 



HO, ANNI FUGENTES. 

Ho, flying years, we bid you stand. 
Like horsemen proudly mounted. 

Till on the digits of our hand. 
In order you are counted; 

From first to last the years between, 

Our boy to-day is just eighteen. 

Auspicious hour, 't is youth's spring flood, 
Life's tide begins to strengthen ; 

The flower is bursting from the bud. 
The years now slowly lengthen : 

May they in grace and goodness grow, 

As on the rapid numbers flow. 

In body sound, and sound in mind, — 
The best of earthly treasures, — 

The higher life already found, 

'T is now the choice of measures ; 

These wisely choose from day to day, 

And push along life's rugged way. 

'T is little worth to any one. 

Though years be very many, 
If looking from life's setting sun 

We 've been no help to any ; 



HEART AND HOME. 

That life is long, to kindness wed, — 
Who others help, come out ahead. 

Accept this day, our precious boy. 
Your parents' fond caressing ; 

Our children are our crown and joy, — 
On each we rest our blessing ; 

That we may share the heavenly rest, 

Be each with true religion blest. 



^11 



I 3 8 HE A RT A ND HOME. 



ONE YEAR AGO. 

One year ago, — ah ! who can tell 
How much this cycle meaneth, 

As waves of trouble sink and swell, 
And Hght through darkness gleameth? 

To those bereaved, a year of woes ; 

To those released, one of repose. 

One year ago, — one year ago! 

My aching heart repeateth. 
What other heart can feel my woe ? 

Like mine what other beateth ? 
Dear friends are tender, true and kind, 
But none for me true solace find. 

One year ago, — one long, long year, — 

An age to me already ! — 
They carried, in that shrouded bier, 

My own sweet darling Freddie. 
Beside his grave with grasses grown, 
I go to-day to weep and moan. 

Bereaved mothers, if ye dare, 

O tell me how ye fetter 
The throbbings of your wild despair, 

My own to bind the better ; 
My heart is like the troubled sea, — 
Resisfned and calm I cannot be. 



HEART AND HOME. I 3 

They told me, when he closed his eyes, — 

They told me in their pity. 
That he had gone beyond the skies, 

To the eternal city ; 
I know it well, he 's there, he 's there. 
But I am lonely everywhere. 

Oh ! couldst thou give to me once more, 

My fainting heart to steady, 
The darling that my bosom bore, — 

My own, my precious Freddie, — 
Thou wouldst, O God, a mountain move, 
And fill a mother's heart with love. 

But I must not this prayer prefer, — 

I know 't is griefs petition ; 
The mortal part is prone to err, 

'T is grace that gives submission : 
I '11 turn me from my grief away, 
And seek for grace from day to day. 

I plant the grave where Freddie sleeps, 

Adown the silent city. 
With flowers within whose bosomed deeps 

Are tears of love and pity ; 
And turn me from the grave away. 
To come and weep another day. 



1 40 HE A RT A ND HOME. 



MY MOTHER'S EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY. 

How beautiful is age, whose amber glow 

Is life's maturity of duties done, 

And love passed on from flower to clustering fruit. 

And such is thine, good mother, for thy Hfe 

Of toils and cares has passed in royal grace 

Of Christian womanhood, so true to God, 

And true to home and friends, and to thyself 

As well ; and multitudes shall call thee blest 

When thou art called to say the last farewell. 

Till then may angels guide thy heavenward steps, 

And God be gracious to thy trusting soul. 

And friends be true and kind with loving care. 

Thus life flow on, a river deep and strong. 

Through verdant meads, the banks well lined with fruit 

Of sweetest taste and flowers of choicest kind. 

And when the guiding hand of the good Lord 

Shall gently lead thee down death's shaded way, 

Thou will not fear to go that path, I know, 

For thou hast looked adown that gloomy vale. 

Full many a time, and saw no terror there 

Where Christ has passed, death's plague and conqueror. 



HE A RT A ND HOME . 1 4 I 



MOTHER AND SON. 

This I write now, line by line, — 
Authorship will call it mine ; 
Yet another's let it be, — 
Dearest mother, 't is of thee. 

Many days have come and gone. 
Nights have brightened into dawn, 
Since I clasped thy mother hand, — 
Heard thy voice to me so grand. 

Gladly with thee would I be. 
Thy sweet face in smiles to see ; 
Thou to all art ever good, 
In thy noble womanhood. 

Distant though my walks outspread, 
Yet thine arm oft holds my head ; 
On my cheek I feel thy kiss, — 
Thou art with me writing this. 

By thy side I seem to walk. 
Hear thee sing and hear thee talk ; 
Present to my mental eye. 
Oft I see thee walking by. 

I am near thy mother heart, — 
Nothing can us ever part ; 



1 4 2 HE A RT A ND HOME. 

Love is strong as death can be: 
Love and life bind me and thee. 



Each to other God doth give, 
Each for other thus we Uve. 
May each boy and mother find 
Each to other good and kind. 



A LASSIE DEAR. 

My sweetheart is a lassie dear, 

A maiden true and kind ; 
A sweeter lass, look where you will, 

'T were hard indeed to find. 

Her eyes are light, her cheeks are fair. 
There 's sunshine in her face : 

With form erect, and noble mien. 
She moves with matchless grace. 

Her mind and manners are refined, — 
'T is nature joined with art ; 

Her voice attracts, her smile is sweet ; 
The dial of her heart. 

I wish you happiness complete, 

Ye lads with lassies fair : 
But not a lassie in the lot 

With mine can well compare. 



HE A RT A ND HOME. 1 4 3 



SWEET UNADILLA. 

All hail, Unadilla sweet, ho ! 

Thou child of the mist and the dew ; 
Be not in a hurry to go, — 

Just give me a moment or two. 
The tip of the morning, sweet river. 

The tip of the morning to you ; 
A message have I to deliver, — 

A message most charmingly true. 

A lover has come to our cottage, — 

A bonnie good fellow and fine ; 
I'll make him a mess of good pottage, 

For that lover, sweet river, is mine. 
His cheeks wear the blush of the sunrise, 

His thick locks are curly and brown ; 
So charming the flash of his blue eyes. 

He 's caught all the gossips in town. 

Now this is my secret, sweet river, — 

This secret now pledge me you "11 stay, 
This evening myself and my lover 

Along thy green borders will stray. 
If now by the hand my fair lover, — 

Lest haply I slip from the path, — 
Should lead me the narrow bridge over, 

Tell it not to the daughters of Gath. 



1 44 HEA RT A ND HOME. 

And now with the bridge safely over, 

If my hand to dismiss he forget. 
Will you think it amiss of my lover, 

And murmur and mumble and fret ? 
Or if Luna's fair face we discover, 

Gazing down on thy mirror of light, 
If for safety should clasp me my lover. 

Would it be, my sweet river, all right ? 

And now should we tarry, forgetting, 

Tarry on to the wee hours of night, 
Thy beauties, O river, beholding. 

All but lost at the ravishing sight, — 
Say naught if this maid and her lover. 

In a moment of rapturous bliss 
Should say a good night, O my river, 

And part with the pledge of a kiss. 



HEART AND HOME. 1 45 



THE MAID WITH NUT-BROWN HAIR. 

Maids are many, maids are merry, 

Charming in their tutored locks ; 
Cheeks as red as is the cherry, 

Blessed ewelings of the flocks. 
Oft we gaze with wondering vision, 

Each with other we compare ; 
But the best, in our decision, 

Is the maid with nut-brown hair. 

She is good and she is cheery, — 

To be better need not try ; 
He who wins her wins a dearie. 

And you know the reason why. 
Girls are good, 't is our declaring. 

They are mostly true and fair ; 
But the best, in our comparing, 

Is the girl with nut-brown hair. 

She is kind and she is thoughtful. 

Mindful of another's grief; 
She is ever wisely helpful, — 

To the needy brings relief. 
Maids are fashioned to be useful. 

And their virtues we declare, 
But the best — we must be truthful — 

Is the maid with nut-brown hair. 



146 HE A R r A ND HOME. 

Maids are winsome, maids are instant, 

And they like a worthy mate : 
Worthy lads, be ye not distant, — 

Close in with your better fate. 
So when ye a-wooing darest, 

Choose ye then a lassie fair. 
But to me pray leave the fairest, — 

'T is the maid with nut-brown hair. 



HE A RT A ND HOME. 1 4 7 



AN ETHEREAL VISITANT. 

Quick as the heart-beats come and go, 

A soft hand strokes my brow ; 
As bounds away the startled roe, 

That form eludes me now. 
I almost hear her rustling wings, — 

A cold wave fans my cheek ; 
Ah ! me, she neither sighs nor sings, — 

In vain I try to speak. 

This phantom form, with magic spell, 

That fills my mental eye, 
I often see, — I know her well, — 

Whene'er she passes by. 
When pensive mood or leisure hour 

Has drawn the eyelids down, 
'T is then she wields her mightiest power 

And wears her brightest crown. 

I fain would clasp her snowy hand, — 

I know 't is vain to try ; 
She comes from out some shadow-land. 

Ethereal as the sky. 
To fill my heart with love's desire 

And make it overflow, — 
To kindle up its altar fire 

And make the embers glow. 



48 HEART AND HOME. 

Oh ! phantom form, with mortal face 

Of one among the dead, 
Thou hast a seraph's nameless grace, - 

A seraph's matchless tread : 
A moment's bhss thy visits give, 

The wondrous truth to know; 
The sainted dead in spirit live 

On earth who loved us so. 



HEART AND HOME. 



149 



THE POET ENCOURAGED. 

Mirk was the day when I was born, — 

I 'm neither lout nor lucky ; 
By some I 'm praised, and some will scorn ; 

'T is a" the sam.e, my chucky. 
Be gud and true, 't is partly due, 

Be also independent ; 
Just be yoursel', and spite the de'il. 

And that '11 be the end on 't. 

Waesucks the day that made me poet, 

Wi' bluid and bones and bonnet ; 
It strack me yong, how weel I know it. 

Let tears begrim each sonnet. 
Gin I must write something bedight, 

Then hide it in a comer ; 
Ah ! thy good muse, not so abuse, 

Nor scout, nor scrimp, nor scorn her. 

Roll on the winds the poems fair, 

Fhng out the pleasing ditty, 
And thus make known thy rhyming ware 

In country and in city. 
The muses will be with you still, 

If you make others better ; 
Write not for self, nor sordid pelf, 

So pay your debts, O debtor. 



50 



HEART AND HOME. 

Glad be the day, we something owe it. 

And never may we rue it ; 
For well we know it made a poet 

With flesh and blood and suet. 
Our world so bare can illy spare 

Poetic Pauls and Peters, — 
So write away, by night and day, 

Your best of winged metres. 



HE A RT AND HOME. I 5 I 



THE SOLDIER'S RETURN. 



You ask me where the night has gone, 

And where have gone the stars ; 
For when you fell a-sleeping, Maud, 

Upon my shoulder bars, 
The night had thrown around us both 

Her gauzy veil of light, 
I just could see your form, my Maud, 

Beneath the robe of night. 

II. 
You ask me where the night has gone, 

And where's the Morning Star. 
The night has gone a-wooing, Maud, 

The stellar depths afar, — 
Has gone to meet her Lucifer, 

The rosy son of morn ; 
The sons of earth were wooing, Maud, 

Nor she a maid forlorn. 

III. 
You ask me when she will return. 

And when return the stars, 
That you may fall asleep, my Maud, 

Upon my shoulder bars. 



I 5 2 HE A RT A ND HOME. 

The night will surely soon return, 
The day will soon be spent ; 

But I must go to-morrow, Maud, 
To join my regiment. 

IV. 

You ask me when I will return, — 

I cannot tell you when ; 
The night will oft go wooing, Maud, 

With us, 't is now and then. 
But when returns my regiment, 

With nigh a thousand men, 
I surely will return, my Maud, 

And meet you here again. 



You ask me when my regiment. 

With its grand maximum, 
From its long dusty marches, Maud, 

Will home a-v»'ooing come. 
Just when I cannot surely tell, — 

A falsehood I abhor ; 
The regiment will come, my Maud. 

When kings shall cease to war. 

VI. 

You ask me when these cruel kings 
To wage such wars shall cease. 

That happy time will be, my Maud, 
When comes the Prince of Peace ; 



HE A RT A ND HOME. I 5 3 

Then men will turn to pruning-hooks 

Their deadly thrusting spears, 
To plow-shares beat their swords, my Maud, 

In those delicious years. 

VII. 

You ask me when that Prince will come. 

And fill with peace each land. 
That day advances grandly, Maud, 

I wish 't was now at hand ; 
These wars and wastings then will cease. 

And night will flee away ; 
Then we will cease our wand'ring, Maud, — 

'T will be a restful day. 



RELIGIOUS 



GOD IS LOVE. 

Sounding through the depths eternal, 
From the lips of the supernal, 
Half confessed by the infernal, 
Voices, soft as note of dove, 
Meet and mingle earth above. 
Sweetly saying, God is love. 

Seraphs, angels, well ye know it. 
Debt of love, the demons owe it ; 
Heart of hearts, of priest and poet. 
If ye high the ^vindows shove, 
In will come the pensive dove. 
Sweetly voicing, God is love. 

Truth of truths of all the ages. 
Deeper than the wisest pages, 
Older than the oldest sages, — 
Heart to heart as hand to glove. 
Fits the truth, beneath, above, 
Fact to faith, that God is love. 

From the stars it brightly shineth, 
Round creation's pillars twinetk ; 
All the paths of light it lineth. 
Holding all to life and love ; 
Worlds beneath and worlds above, 
Truth sublimest, God is love. 



158 RELIGIOUS. 



THE ATONING SAVIOUR. 

Jesus dies the lost to save, 

A culprit's cross, a guarded grave ; 

He this bitter cup must taste 

In death's woe-begotten waste ; 

There the sinners fate he shares, — 

All their sin and shame he wears. 

Why is this ? You ask me why 
Like a sinner Christ must die ? 
Did he e'er God's law transgress, 
Did he e'er to guilt confess ? 
Angel voices answer : No, 
He was spotless as the snow. 

But our many sins he bore. 
And for this he suffered sore ; 
He in chains for us was led. 
Dying in the sinner's stead ; 
Tasting death for sinful man, 
He made good salvation's plan. 

He from out the gates of hell. 
Evermore with God to dwell. 
Came to life and light again ; 
And the ransomed shout. Amen ! 
Death was conquered in the strife, 
Hell gave up the Prince of Life. 



RELIGIOUS. 

Sinner, say, what wilt thou now ? 
Wilt thou to this Saviour bow ? 
Jesus died that thou might'st live, 
Heart and hand to Jesus give ; 
Saved from death and wrath divine, 
In God's presence thou shalt shine. 



GOD OF THE MORNING LIGHT. 

God of the morning light, 
Thy radiant face we greet ; 

Thy heavenly beams are bright. 
Thy smiles divinely sweet. 

We lay us down in peace, — 
We nothing have to fear ; 

Thy care will never cease, — 
We know that thou art near. 

Awaked, we 're still with thee ; 

What grace, what wondrous love, 
With us always to be, 

Descending from above ! 

God of the morning light. 
Thy radiant face we greet ; 

Thy heavenly beams are bright. 
Thy smiles divinely sweet. 



159 



l6o RELIGIOUS. 



LAND OF THE LIVING. 



We are dying, ever dying, 

In this wilderness of woe ; 
We are sighing, ever sighing, 

Up and down the world we go : 
We are longing, ever longing, 

To ascend among the blest, 
Who are living, ever living. 

In the land of perfect rest. 

Call it not, this world of wasting, 

On these wreck-strewn shores of time 
Call it not, land of the living, 

'T is but mockery sublime. 
Land where all are sighing, crying. 

That they sigh and cry no more. 
In the land that knows no dying. 

On the bHssful farther shore. 

There it is, land of the living. 

Trees of life bloom evermore, — 
Trees of life, to mortal giving 

Life they never knew before ; 
There thou art, land of the living. 

All for thee I lay aside ; 
Life shall crown my daily dying, 

Since for me the Saviour died. 



RELIGIOUS. l6l 



THE SABBATH. 

Hail, Sabbath day, sweet day of peace, 
From worldly cares a fond release ; 
I Ve waited long thy face to see, 
My heart leaps up to welcome thee. 

Hail, Sabbath day, sweet, restful day, 
I hear thy call to praise and pray ; 
But many see thee come and go, 
And yet thy name they scarcely know. 

When first I saw thee face to face. 
In all thy true seraphic grace, 
'T was when my heart was born again ; 
If e'er I saw thee, it was then. 

I saw in thee a father's love. 
An angel from the realms above, 
A foretaste of the world to come, 
Within my earthly Sabbath home. 

Since then my poor forgetful ways 
Have grieved thee oft, thou queen of days ; 
Yet thou dost act the faithful part, 
And keep thy promise to my heart. 



1 62 RELIGIOUS. 

The state may have its festal day, 
And many choose to rest that way : 
But thou, blest Sabbath, God did name 
A heavenly birthright thou canst claim. 

Since thou hast been so good to me, 
I can no less than promise thee 
To tell to all the world around 
What a blest Sabbath I have found. 



EVENING. 

God of the evening, thee I praise 
For this, another earth-born day ; 

Help me review my checkered ways 
And for thy blessing humbly pray. 

If I this day, in word or deed. 

From truth and right have turned aside, 
Grant me the grace so much I need, 

No more to leave my heavenly guide. 

The dusky shadows noiseless spread. 
The hush of evening deeper grows ; 

Lord, on thine arm I lay my head. 
And rest amid the night's repose. 



RELIGIOUS. 163 



JESUS, MY SAVIOUR. 

Jesus, stay my soul on thee, 
My divine supporter be ; 
Bear me on thy loving arm, 
Save me from all wrong and harm. 

Thou hast helped me all along, 
Keep me, Saviour, pure and strong 
Then life's battle I shall win 
And escape the paths of sin. 

Thou dost not forsake thine own. 
Else how quickly overthrown ! 
With them thou in need wilt be, 
Leading on to victory. 

This is comfort, sweet, sublime. 
On these rugged shores of time: 
Come, ye weary, taste and see 
What of rest there is for thee. 

Others in thy grace will share, 
'j'aste its sweetness everywhere ; 
And the world be brighter far 
For each added silver star. 



164 RELIGIOUS. 

What a Saviour here have we, 



First to make, then keep us free : 
He upholds us all the way, 
Tells us how to watch and pray. 



CHILD OF PEACE. 

Fresh as the morning air, 

Sweet as the hour of prayer. 

Still as the summer rain, 

Rich as the golden grain. 

Pure as the buds of May, 

Calm as the close of day, 

Art thou, O child of peace, 

Waiting thy fond release 

From this dark world of woe, 

Ready to stay or go ; 

Thou art above all others blest, 

Naught can disturb thy peaceful breast. 



RELIGIOUS. 165 



ANGELUS. 

At flush of morn when labor wakes. 

When nature feels her pulses thrill, 
And fresh winds stir mid boughs and brakes, 

And all is fair by vale and hill, — 
Just as the sun-flame gilds each wall. 

Let all cathedral bells ring out, 
To Angelus their matin call, 

Repeated by each soul devout. 

As mounts the sun the vaulted skies 

And strikes the great meridian hne. 
Then ere the sacred moment flies, 

Let chimes ring out the notes divine ; 
To Angelus the noon-day call, 

And every head be bowed in prayer, 
In field and shop, and hut and hall. 

The Angelus is everywhere. 

As grandly down the azure slide 

The sun pursues his royal way, 
The gates of even open wide. 

And through them sweeps the king of day 
Then once again let chimes ring out. 

To Angelus the vesper call. 
And every one, of soul devout. 

Repeat the prayer for Christ and all. 



1 66 RELIGIOUS. 

Ring on, ring on, cathedral bells, 

Your loving calls to praying men ; 
As sacred scripture plainly tells. 

This Son of God will come again. 
The Angelus will then be said 

By men and angels, one and all. 
Before him come the quick and dead 

And at his feet in homage fall. 



THE PATH. 

There is a path no vulture's eye hath seen, 

A path no lion's whelp hath trod ; 
It Hes this earth and yonder sky between. 

It climbs the sacred hills of God. 

The good and true of every age and cHme 
Have found and walked this heavenly way. 

And reached at last those distant heights sublime. 
Where darkness ends in brightest day. 

By grace divine mine eyes anointed see 
This pathway through the viewless air ; 

My wandering feet now thither turn ; I '11 be 
A pilgrim to yon mansions fair. 

This path of Hfe, 't is thine, O God, to show 
To all who seek wdth earnest prayer 

To find this straight and narrow way, and know 
The hand divine that guides them there. 



RELIGIOUS. 167 



CHRISTMAS EVE. 

This is the night our Christ was born, — 
Oh ! joyous eve, but brighter morn ! 
A birthday this, nor could there be 
A grander one, on land or sea. 

He came the lost to seek and save, 
To ope the portals of the grave, — 
To bring the dead to life again 
And change the hearts of sinful men. 

He blessed the small, reproved the great, 
Refused the honors of the state ; 
He taught by Hp, and by his hfe. 
And hushed the angry waves of strife. 

His earthly work at last complete. 
He goes to take his royal seat 
Upon the universal throne, — 
God over all, and God alone. 

Then hail, all hail, to Christmas eve 1 
This is the hour of heaven's reprieve ; 
This is the day of all the best, — 
Its blessings hallow all the rest. 



1 68 RELIGIOUS. 

Bring in the day with pipe and song, 
Let grand processions move along ; 
Let saintly men and sinners, too, 
The offerings bring, to Jesus due. 

Whatever other days befall, 

Let this return with joy to all. 

Till time shall end its lengthened score 

And suns shall set to rise no more. 



GODLINESS. 

O GODLINESS, great is thy mystery,' 
Of priests and prophets thou the countersign ; 
Long didst thou He entombed in history, 
Until the sceptred hand of power divine 
Did bring thee forth, the wonder of all time ; 
Of truths the mightiest, the central truth, 
The simplest, and of all the most sublime ; 
Crown of the hoary head, of tender youth. 
Incarnate godhness, most manifest, 
In mortal flesh ; the Spirit justified 
Thy work, the angels saw thee and confessed ; 
Thou wast to trusting Gentiles verified, 
And as thy message came the world believed 
And thou to God and glory wast received. 



RELIGIOUS. 169 



FORGIVING. 

I FEEL a spirit stirring in my bosom, stirred of late, 

As boils the seething ocean round the grate of Etna ; 
hate 

It seems not ; yet it fires the blood through every 
burning vein : 

It flashes in my eye, my cheek, then restless in my brain, 

It rises like the swollen stream, beyond its proper 
bound, 

And pours a desolating flood the cultured fields around ; 

It robs my waking hours of wonted calm and sweet 
repose 

And holds me long a captive, when my drooping eye- 
lids close. 

Tell me, who can, pray tell, what means this deep and 
dark unrest, 

This passion, what, that storms the moated castle in 
my breast ? 

Resentment, say you, it must base resentment surely be ! 

I thought I must resent a wanton insult offered me ; 

O earth, O deep, O sky, know ye no voice with power 
to still 

This tempest of emotion, and empower my flagging will. 

To seize the scepter and to hold the reins of self-con- 
trol, 

Till peace prevail through all the chambers of ray 
troubled soul ? 



170 



RELIGIOUS. 



Has He not power who walked a-night the waves of 

GaUlee, 
Whose mighty mandate calmed the wild winds and the 

raging sea ? 
I cannot doubt ; I hear the accents of that sweet voice 

now 
My name pronounce ; he lays his strong hand on my 

fevered brow. 
O Gilead, I taste the precious healing of thy balm : 
O Galilee, I know how deep thy Christ-commanded 

calm ; 
Forgiving those v/ho wronged me, I am now of God 

forgiven 
And live in love and joy and peace, with anchor-hold 

of heaven. 



RELIGIOUS. 171 



THE BOUND UNBOUND. 

The bands of death have held him long, 
The triple cords are firm and strong ; 
Their thrall is much against his will, 
But he is held a captive still. 

A prisoned bird, he seeks the skies, — 
He strikes his cage, but cannot rise ; 
To will, is present ; do, is not ; 
The promise made is soon forgot. 

He oft will weep, and watch, and pray. 
And answering light bedecks his way ; 
With this rehef, improvement 's through, 
He careless is, and prayerless, too. 

His life is barren of the good. 

He little does of all he should ; 

But what he should not, that will do, — 

His sins are many, graces few. 

His faults and folHes none may know, — 
He hates and hides them, high and low. 
And thinks he will, as in God's sight. 
Refuse the wrong and do the right. 



1/2 



RELIGIOUS, 

His heart is stricken through and through 
As he, with grief, his ways review ; 
Oh ! is there not, he cries, a balm, 
For my unrest a heavenly calm? 

My Saviour, to thy cross I fly, 
And prostrate at thy feet I He : 
The part I have kept back, I bring, — 
Myself I give, and everything. 

I will not cease on thee to call. 
Till thou shalt be my all in all ; 
Now, show me. Lord, just what to do, 
Just how to press the battle through. 

Oh! mirror bright, oh! law divine. 
The spirit now, from every Hne 
My every sin reveals to me 
And grace enough to set me free. 

Oh ! precious truth, oh ! heaUng grace. 
Through rifted clouds I see thy face ; 
Thou Lamb of God, for sinners slain, 
I look and weep, and look again. 

Off from my Hmbs the shackles fall, 
Now leap I o'er my prison wall ; 
From sin and doubt am I set free. 
Thine, Jesus, thine alone to be. 



RELIGIOUS. 173 

I feel a strange, sweet peace and joy, — 
'T is pleasure freed from base alloy ; 
A crystal stream is flowing by, 
And all is bright from earth to sky. 

I walk no more in life's vain show, — 
How base are all things here below ! 
A higher, purer life I find, 
Of sweet contentment of the mind. 

Come to the cross, ye fettered slaves, 
And learn how freely Jesus saves ; 
When unto him ye humbly bow, 
He saves you fully, saves you now. 

Surrender, is the high command. 
To Jesus give your heart and hand ; 
Emptied of self and every sin, 
Jesus will fill the void within. 

The blood of Christ has power to free : 
Oh! sink beneath the purple sea. 
And rise to love and life divine. 
And perfect freedom then is thine. 



174 RELIGIOUS. 



GENU FLECTO. 

When I shall die I little know, 

As little do I care ; 
God knows the time when I shall die, 

And I can leave it there. 
It may be soon — death flyeth fast 

On wings of every breeze ; 
I only ask that I at last 

May die upon my knees. 

Stephen the good, a martyr he, 

First of Christ's followers, 
Pardon besought on bended knee 

For all his murderers. 
With clasped hands, uplifted eyes. 

The Son of God he sees ; 
Exulting at the sight, he cries, 

And dies upon his knees. 

I care not where my lot may fall 

To feel death's wily dart ; 
On land or sea, the sable pall 

May hide the mortal part. 
A crystal coffin would be meet, 

Within the polar seas, 
If I might have my wish complete, 

And die upon my knees. 



RELIGIOUS. 175 

Oh ! may I then, my life to prayer 

Devote from day to day, 
Lest death should come ere I 'm aware 

And take my life away. 
At evening, morning, and at noon, 

'Neath sheltering roof or trees. 
By light of lamp or silver moon 

I 11 bend in prayer my knees. 



176 RELIGIOUS. 



NEARING THE GOAL. 

A STRANGE, sweet vision fills my soul, 
A glimpse of glory and of God ; 

Am I not near life's final goal? 

My feet scarce touch this mortal sod. 

The zephyrs blow divinely sweet, 
With fragrance fill the balmy air ; 

Are heaven and earth about to meet ? 
Who can this vision bright declare ? 

I hear the notes of seraph song, 

The rustle of an angel's wing ; 
Do signs like these to earth belong? 

Do men and angels meet to sing? 

Life's journey seems about complete ; 

I con it well, yet know not why. 
My heart with longings is replete, 

And yet I do not long to die. 

A holy calm my bosom fills, 

And silence like the hush of morn ; 

Such joy through all my being thrills 

As swept men's hearts when Christ was born. 



RELIGIOUS. 177 

Amid the crowds I look around 

To see who bear love's fragrant flower : 

I fain would walk on holy ground 
Made sacred by the Spirit's power. 

God has the keeping of my ways, 
His laws I reverence and obey ; 

My prayers seem almost turned to praise, 
And yet I cannot cease to pray. 

If this is death, I do not dread 

To lay me down in peace to die, — 

To be with all the sainted dead. 
Far, far beyond the arching sky. 



I yS RELIGIOUS. 



WHAT I WAS, AM, AND SHALL BE. 

I WAS lost in a waste-weary world full of woe; 
I was houseless, alone, 1 knew not where to go; 
I am found, to my joy, by my shepherd so kind, — 
I am housed, fed and clothed, all I need now I find; 
I shall be with my Lord when he comes back to reign, — 
What a heaven will it be in that joy to remain. 

I an outcast did roam o'er the land and the sea, 

I was friendless and poor as a beggar could be; 

I am claimed by the king, he has made me an heir, 

I am bound for my home in a city so fair; 

In that home I shall be with the sanctified throng, — 

I shall pass through their gates, 1 shall join in their song. 

I was vile, full of sin, I was wretched, undone, 
All too weak to perform what of good was begun : 
Wholly now I am cleansed from pollution and sin, 
Happy now I can sing, Christ without, Christ within ; 
Free from sin, free from wrath, like him now, I shall be 
Safe from sin, safe from death, in eternity. 

I was sold under sin by the curse of the law, 

I was doomed to be cast into death's cruel maw ; 

I am bought by the blood of the crucified Lord, 

I am saved from the stroke of the death-dealing sword; 



RELIGIOUS. 179 

And a crown I shall wear in the sweet by and by, 
When the king comes again from his home in the sky. 

Oh, the past, dreadful past, without hope, without God, 
Till my soul steeped in sin felt the smart of his rod : 
Oh, the joy now I feel, with my sins all forgiven, 
Walking on day by day to my mansion in heaven ; 
Oh, the bliss that will be, when my Saviour I see ! 
All my foes then will fall, I shall have victory. 



8o RELIGIOUS. 



WORKING AND WAITING. 

I AM v/aiting for the coming 

Of earth's long expected Lord. 
For the signs seem fast fulfilling, 

That he gave us in his word ; 
I am watching, I am waiting. 

For that promised glory day, 
Yet I do not cease my working, — 

I must work as well as pray. 

Pray I for the grace of waiting, 

For the grace to work and wait. 
That my heart may cease its throbbing. 

Calm and strong for any fate ; 
That my eyes may cease uplifting 

When a shadow passes by, 
For the moment half expecting 

Then to hear the midnight cry. 

Day and hour no mortal knoweth 

Of the advent of the Lord ; 
This the Master plainly showeth 

In the teachings of his word. 
Yet that day of days is coming. 

And the gladsome hours seem nigh. 
For the signals are appearing 

In the earth and air and sky. 



RELIGIOUS. l8l 

I may die before the beaming 

Of that bright millennial day ; 
Short and sweet will be the dreaming 

In the twilight shadows gray ; 
Ere the midnight trumpet soundeth, 

Ringing through death's dormer room, 
And each Christian, hearing, boundeth 

From the portals of the tomb. 

I am waiting, I am praying. 

For the promised glory day. 
As I read each promise, saying 

Christ is on his earthward way. 
I can wait until the dawning. 

Fixed my heart for any fate ; 
Come at noon, or eve, or morning, 

I will meet him at the gate. 



1 82 RELIGIOUS. 



BEFORE I DIE. 

Before I die, I long to be 
From every sin made wholly free ; 
And others saved I trust to see, 
From pole to pole, from shore to lea. 
I hope all good, O man, for thee, 
And that the same be hoped for me. 
On its grand rounds from A to Z, 
May truth prevail triumphantly ; 
I pray that wrong away may flee, 
From land to land, from sea to sea ; 
Success attend each righteous plea. 
And earth adore the Trinity, 
Before I die. 

I hope, before the pick and spade 
The narrow house for me have made. 
Within the graveyard's solemn shade, 
Before the clods are on me laid, 
Whate'er men owe will all be paid, 
Due God or man, the same be said, 
The law of love be thus obeyed. 
And naught be done man to degrade ; 
A time long looked for, long delayed. 
For which the v/orld has long time prayed. 
Give it, O God, thy timely aid, 
Before I die. 



RELIGIOUS. 183 

Before I die, I hope to make 
Some burdens light, for Jesus' sake ; 
To cheer some hearts about to break, 
To teach some feet right paths to take, 
Some careless sleeper to awake 
To win the crown that is at stake : 
To send the truth through bough and brake, 
To make the realms of darkness shake 
And all the demons quail and quake : 
To snatch men from the maelstrom's wake. 
To keep them from th' engulfing lake, 
And bind the wounds that bleed and ache, 
Before I die. 



184 RELIGIOUS. 



MEETING AND PARTING. 

We have met again together, 
On these happy, happy days ; 

Met to hear and help each other, 
Met to join in prayer and praise. 

Longed for are these holy meetings, 
Trystings on our heavenward way,— 

Foretastes of the heavenly greetings 
That await the coming day. 

We have met and we have parted, — 
Some will part to meet no more ; 

And we all are tender hearted 
Over those who 've gone before. 

Such is life ; how strange the mixture. 
Stranger than our tongues can tell ; 

Light and shadow is the picture, — 
Welcome 't is, and then farewell. 

But it is not wise to sorrow ; 

Wiser 't is to work and pray, 
And to meet the sad to-morrow 

As we met the glad to-day. 



RELIGIOUS. 185 

Now and then upon the crossways 
We shall shake the friendly hand, 

Then pursue our devious pathways 
To the dark and silent land. 

Yes, our thoughts are tinged with sadness 

As we look these faces o'er, 
And reflect that present gladness 

Is a wave upon the shore. 

Friend wfth friend in sweet communion, 

By these altar fires we stand, 
In the hope of future union 

In the Christian's promised land. 

May the God who gave us being, — 
Gave the power to live and love, — 

Guide us through our earthly straying, 
Till we all shall meet above. 

Gladly then we '11 greet each other, — 

Turn our praying into praise ; 
We shall always be together 

Through those coming happy days. 

Let us then our courage strengthen. 

Let us speak a brave adieu ; 
As we see the shadows lengthen. 

Let us fight the battle through. 



RELIGIOUS. 



THE JEWISH PROPHET'S LAMENT OVER 
THE FALL OF EGYPT. 

How can I mourn for thee, O Egypt-land? 

Didst thou not make my fathers bondmen, slaves. 

Upon them lay thy heavy, cruel hand, 

And heartless send them to their early graves? 

But now has come thy time of wrath, and waves 

Of trouble o'er thee break in surging foam ; 

A mightier than thou with arms appears, — 

The King of Babylon has left his home 

To seize thy wealth, the product of long years, 

To cause thee loss, and fill thine eyes with tears. 

The word of Jahvah comes to me. Lament ! 
Then will I weep and wail for this fair strand, 
Since for their sins they will not now repent. 
Nor lift to Jahvah, God, in prayer a hand ; 
In pride of self they boldly take their stand, 
And thou. King Pharaoh, as a lion strong, 
Dost trample down the nations 'neath thy feet, 
And like a whale that to the seas belong, 
Thou foulest up thine inland waters sweet ; 
The net shall take thee and thy fall complete. 

Now shall the heavens be wrapt in mourning deep, 
The stars above thee cease their light to shed : 
The sun, the heathen s God, be seen to weep. 



RELIGIOUS. 187 

The moon to veil in clouds her queenly head, 
And darkness fill all hearts with fear and dread. 
A signal to the nations, this : they, too, 
Before the Jahvah's brandished sword shall fall. 
And falling, bid the world a last adieu, 
And go to Sheol at death's dreaded call, 
And there be mustered in its mystic hall. 

Lament for Egypt, all ye nations, weep ; 

Her pomp is spoiled, her armies cease to fight, 

The desolating flood is swift and deep ; 

No more for her shall break the morning hght, — 

Nothing is left but dreaded, dreary night. 

Then hft the gates of Hades ; let her pass, 

Down to the deepest, darkest depths of hell ; 

Here meet her, Asher and her sons, alas ! 

Here Elam, Mesheck, Tubal, Edom dwell. 

And Zidon, all bound in death's mystic spell. 

Lament for Egypt? There are reasons why: 
Oldest, richest of the nations ; hoar 
With age when they were in their infancy, 
Precocious, provident, and full of store. 
Tombs, pyramids and temples, and far more 
Of garnered wealth, of handicraft and art 
From her rich fields and rivers much she drew ; 
Thus always rich and young she was the mart 
Of nations as from infancy they grew. 
Steady of hand and to her purpose true. 



1 88 RELIGIOUS. 

She was the home of learning, and her hand 

Wrought in her graphic rocks her records true, 

And in her parchment books ; and here they stand 

To tell the story to her credit due 

And to amaze the world, instruct them, too. 

Here, too, for centuries, v/as Israel's land. 

In time of famine gave them of her bread. 

Until another king arose, who planned 

To humble, waste them by decrees most dread. 

Till every male inhabitant was dead. 

Here, too, a Hebrew prince was bom and housed,— 

Moses, a child of faith, true to the core ; 

By Pharaoh's daughter found, his cause espoused. 

And taught the wisdom of Egyptian lore, 

But taught of God the truth forevermore. 

A thousand things, in Egypt's long career, 

Demand our praise, enkindle strong desire; 

Nor can we scarce restrain the falling tear. 

Or silent leave the mournful lute and lyre, 

To see her glory rise and then expire. 



RELIGIOUS. 189 



SABBATHS MILITANT. 

The militant Sabbaths like soldiers are marching, 

The long, dusty marches of time to complete, 
And down through the valleys and over the hillsides 

The lines are advancing, nor think of retreat ; 
The order was given at Eden's fair portals. 

To march right across the broad deserts of earth. 
Up, up to the gates of the happy immortals, 

And there be reviewed in the land of their birth. 

Just look at the columns so quietly passing, 

And see by the guidons how perfectly dressed ; 
By companies, marching in bold, open order. 

And each one appearing so like all the rest ! 
Their uniform royal, their plumes proudly waving, 

Complete their equipments, all worthy of praise ; 
No straggling mihtia, these mihtant Sabbaths, 

These Sabbaths of God are the best of our days. 

But see, they are crossing an enemy's country, 

For few are the cities that open a gate, 
Or fling out the bunting from flagstaff and steeple, 

And welcome the vet'rans to march in, in state : 
So ofl" of the highways, in byways of earth, 

The militant Sabbaths go marching along, 
Where the birds and the brooks, the fields and the 
forests. 

Salute the battalions and join in their song. 



IQO RELIGIOUS. 

The head of the column, to Zion ascending, 

Now sees just ahead an enrapturing sight: 
The towers and turrets of heaven's fair city, 

By rainbows encircled, embosomed in light ; 
And soon they will be there, these mihtant Sabbaths, 

Will cross over safe on Eternity's shore. 
And all who have known them and loved them on 
earth. 

In heaven will see them and love them the more. 



PHILOSOPHICAL 



THE WINDMILL. 

Day by day the wheel is turning, 
As the grists come in to grind, 

Seeming never tired of turning, 
Turning in the prairie wind. 

I am tired of its turning, 

Tired of watching it, I find ; 
Yet the wheel the mill keeps turning, — 

Blowing, blowing is the wind. 

So the wheel of Hfe keeps going, 

Whirling wildly in the wind. 
As the spirit-breath keeps blowing. 

And the grists come in to grind. 

When some day that wheel stops turning, 
Naught will stop the pulsing wind ; 

All things else now kept revolving 
Are to dust and death inclined. 



94 PHILOSOPHICAL. 



WHAT IS MAN? 

Man 's an image, an intention ; 

He is like the plaster cast, 
Or a model of invention : 

His a likeness, first to last. 
Cease then, for aye, my soul, from man, 
And find the deep, diviner plan. 

Shades of trees, and birds, and clouds, 

See I moving everywhere; 
Dressed in livery, dressed in shrouds, 

Men are shadows thin as air; 
Be not deceived, my soul, by man, — 
For substance thou must deeper scan. 

Is not a shadow, shadowless? 

What see I in the mirror? 
It is my very self, I guess, 

Or there 's a seeming error ; 
But which the shadow, which the man ? 

Shadow, tell me, if you can, 

Wiihin my soul's clear consciousness, 

Mirrored deep, a face I see, 
A face it is all perfectness, — 

The image of Divinity. 

1 cease from self, this primal One to know. 
Embrace the substance, let the shadow go. 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 1 95 



LIFE. 

What is your life ? Ah, who can tell ? 

A subtle secret sealed from heaven 
Down even to the lowest hell, 

To no man is the secret given ; 
Man takes life on no choice of terms, 
And when he dies is food for worms. 

Is life delusion, Hfe a cheat ? 

A flimsy promise, rope of sand ? 
Does time for naught its rounds repeat ? 

Is no divining rod at hand ? 
Must life be borne come as it will. 
Though full of sorrow, bear it still ? 

Ask of the brooks that murmur by, — 
Maybe they know the secret well ; 

Ask of the clouds in yon blue sky 
If they the secret dare to tell ; 

Ask beasts and birds and insects, all ; 

They answer nothing to your call. 

Oracles of nature, why so dum.b ? 

Help us to break the awful seal ; 
May we not know what is to come 

Of mortal Hfe's revolving wheel ? 
Will life expire as lightning's flash ? 
We wait with awe the coming crash. 



I 9 6 PHIL SOP HI C A L . 

They tell us life is vapor-like, — 
A mist-cloud in the morning sky ; 

The sunbeams through its vesture strike, 
It pales and mounts aloft to die. 

Is such the close of life's brief day, 

In the blue ether lost for aye ? 

Let 's see ; the body of the cloud 
Falls down in tiny drops of dew ; 

The sands below become the shroud, 
The vapor mounts th' ethereal blue. 

Sweet promise this : man's body dies. 

The soul mounts upward to the skies. 

Then life is sweet, e'en with its woes, — 
A goodly portion for us all ; 

We will not dread death's calm repose, 
Nor tremble at his solemn call. 

Life's secret we can almost guess, 

It is a mystery none the less. 



PHILOSOPHICA L. 1 9 7 



IS DEATH AN ETERNAL SLEEP? 

So asked the Roman master, he 
Of Tusculum, in deep unrest. 
Voyaging on life's mystic sea, 
And questioning eternity ; 
Is death a sleep — eternal rest? 

O, Marcus TuUius Cicero, 
Proud gens, distinguished man, unblest, 
'T was not for you or yours to know, 
What Grecian culture could not show ; 
Of this your writings stand confessed. 

O orator, thy flaming tongue 
And urgent pleas forbade all rest 
The crowds and senators among ; 
To present truth the forum rung, 
To dim beyond defied the quest. 

A few years more and thou hadst seen 
Of all men born to earth the best : 
The Christ of God, the Nazarene, 
Of heaven and earth the link between ; 
Report to him thy soul's unrest. 

He Hfts the veil ; death is the Une 
Between two worlds ; the soul undrest 
Departs ; its robe, O death, is thine, — 
Spirit and Hfe for aye combine ; 
This brighter truth is heaven's behest. 



198 PHILOSOPHICAL. 



HALF AWAKE. 

Half awake and half asleep, 
I 'm crossing now the line 

That divides from darkness deep 
A world of light divine, 

Whose lances pierce my window-pane 

And softly settle in my brain. 

Sure my steps were led astray. 

Astray by elfin hands ; 
Hard I try to break away 

From their silken bands : 
The light the contest must decide. 
For right and might are on her side. 

Conscious of my consciousness, 

I am myself again, 
With a heart of thankfulness. 

My hand upon the rein, 
For I my master sure must be. 
My mind is wanton as the sea. 

Life is sweet, and sweet the light 

Now mingling into one ; 
Brilhant is the path of right, — 

'T is brilliant as the sun ; 
But do I wake, or do I sleep, 
Amid the day's meridian deej- ? 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 1 99 

Eyes are open, ears a-prop, 

The world is all astir ; 
No place for any one to stop, 

Drive on, drive on, dear sir ; 
Or is it night, or is it day. 
One cannot tell who lives this way. 

Half asleep I jog along 

Until I strike the line, 
That divides the right from wrong, 

Dividing mine from thine ; 
But, bless me, what is one to do ? 
For other folks are nodding, too. 

See them in the courts of law. 

With Justice half asleep ; 
Will she in that lion's maw 

The lamb forever keep ? 
The lawyers take the lion's share, 
The lamb is neither here nor there. 

See the throngs upon the street 

That now are passing by; 
Look at every one you meet. 

Just look him in the eye ; 
'T is all the same, or near, or far. 
SomnambuHsts they mostly are. 

Wide awake they seem to be 
Around the auction block ; 



200 PHILOSOPHICAL. 

Here 's a bargain — one, two, three — 

A pile of railroad stock. 
Just look your purchase o'er and o'er ; 
You were asleep ; you '11 sleep no more. 

Statesmen are a noted class ; 

Should we catch them napping, 
We would never let them pass 

A prodigious thrashing : 
Yet once within our council halls, 
What care they, though the nation falls ? 

Half awake and half asleep. 
Men cross the narrow line 

That divides from darkness deep 
A world of light divine ; 

But foes awake with tares to cheat 

The sleepy men who sow the wheat. 

Fatal sleep it seems to be — 

Blessed, though, the mornings — 

Lethe's fatal lethargy ; 
Solemn are the warnings. 

Day of Judgment, wake thy thunder, 

Till men wake, and weep, and wonder. 



PHIL SOP HI C A L. 2 O I 



MAN MICROCOSMIC. 

"God made the country" — so 'tis sung 
It must, of course, then suit him, 

That there should be 

Diversity 
In everything beneath him ; 

In rocks and rills, 

And plains and hills, 

In cloud and breeze. 

And birds and trees. 

And folk, as vv^ell. 

On earth who dwell. 
Since each for other seems to be, — 
Diversity in unity. 

If mortal man must live on air, 
The trees, as well, must breathe it, 

And beasts and birds, 

And insect herds, 
Manhke roam o'er the planet ; 

Each rock and cloud 

Looks poor and proud ; 

The world looks gay, 

We sometimes say ; 

Forsooth for man, 

God wrought the plan ; 
In man the cosmos we can see, — 
Diversity in unity. 



2 O 2 PHIL SOPHICA L . 

The perfect pattern man displays, 
All else is homologic ; 

In earth and air 

And everywhere, 
From magnicose to microscopic, 

In attitude, 

Or seeming mood, 

In every place 

Man's form or face 

In part is seen, 

If sense be keen : 
There is with man conformity, — 
Diversity with unity. 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 203 



THE SPIDER'S WEB. 

I SAW a web upon the wall, 

I watched its gentle wave ; 
At every breath its rise and fall 

Was solemn as the grave. 

A spider crept along close by, 

And wings were everywhere. 
Of many a hapless panting fly 

That breathed its Ufe out there. 

I looked and looked, and thoughtful grew ; 

The web became a pall, 
I saw the dead — 'twas me, 't was you — 

A lesson for us all. 

Lo, such is life, a charm, a cheat, 

We take it on these terms ; 
A fly suppHes a spider's meat. 

And we are food for worms. 

Swing on, swing on from beams and towers, 
From bush and brake and trees ; 

Life's thread to me will be like yours, 
Soon fluttering in the breeze. 



204 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 



MORTAL OR IMMORTAL. 

They tell us man was born to die ; 

To tell us more we beg them try. 

Ah, tell us man was bom to live, 

Where joys to Hfe their beauties give ; 

But who dare speak us words Hke these ? 

We ask them of the passing breeze, 

Of birds that in the branches sing, 

From small to great, of every wing ; 

We ask them of the dells and nooks, 

And turn the leaves of nature's books ; 

We ask them of each grassy blade 

In open field and forest shade ; 

We ask them of the teeming air. 

We ask them of the morning fair, 

We ask them of the rivulet ; 

What answers do our questions get? 

The winds breathe soft through towering pines. 

Through gauzy clouds the warm sun shines. 

Unnumbered voices rise and roll 

Tlieir airy waves from pole to pole. 

But none of these have leave to say 

That man was born to live for aye. 

We look in vain through earth and air. 

And must we then of life despair ? 

What answer comes from yonder skies ? 

Man lives a little while and dies ; 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 20; 

But if he lives to goodness true, 
He pays the debt to nature due, 
In him who is man's life to sleep, 
Then wakes again no more to weep, 
No more to live on mortal breath, 
No more to feel the chill of death, 
No more 'twixt Hfe and death to hang. 
No more to feel a guilty pang, — 
Exchanging all of earthly strife 
For peace and an immortal life. 



206 PHILOSOPHICAL. 



FINISTERRE. 

I. 

FrOxM off the broad Assyrian plain, 

Between the rivers, current-strong, 
From Padan Aram's grassy main. 

Across the Syrian deserts long, 
The ancient tribes, to venture bent. 

Pushed on beyond the Middle Mer 
And Europe crossed with fixed intent, 

But stopped at last at Finisterre. 



Upon this Land's End, bold and high. 

They stood and asked what this could be ; 
Above them darkly hung the sky. 

Beyond them rolled the rugged sea ; 
They could not tell, they did not know, 

They named the place, they wrote it there 
Since farther men could never go. 

They said it must be Finisterre. 

III. 
But later still, long years agone, 

The Pinta hugged the farther shore. 
And others from the Orient's dawn 

Crossed and recrossed that Nevermore ; 



PHILOSOPHICAL. 207 

And modern times have swept away 
The rugged Land's End everywhere ; 

The name still stands on hfe's highway, 
But where is now our Finisterre? 

IV. 

Men find it in the world of thought. 

By ages past pushed hard along : 
They hold that farther search is naught 

And seek to stop the eager throng. 
They say men can no farther go, 

They cease to delve and do and dare ; 
What lies beyond they nothing know, — 

They name it now, a Finisterre. 

V. 

Men fixed for aye their churchly creeds. 

Their dogmas and their anathemes. 
And make the heart of honor bleed, 

To see them lay their fiendish schemes, 
To stop the onward march of truth. 

And lay her royal banner low, 
To check the eager heart of youth, 

And stop progression at a blow. 

VI. 

The mountain-top must not forget 
The vale that spreads along below ; 

It scarce can stop the rivulet, 

How then the rivers onward flow ? 



208 PHILOSOPHICAL. 

Pride raises high its steeple towers, 
The bigot feigns a serious prayer, 

Concordats frame the sacred hours, 
And councils fix a Finisterre. 

VII. 

With men whose hearts are feebly thewed, 

Whose faith is wanting breath and brawn, 
The dim unseen is rarely viewed, 

And present hope will soon be gone ; 
Though doubts and dangers dam its flight, 

Life lifts and rolls along howe'er, 
And worlds of law and love and light 

Lie on beyond each Finisterre. 

VIII. 

So thus 't will be when comes that day, 

To which all other cycles fly. 
Death is our Land's End on the way 

Across the fading termini ; 
Though on beyond vast oceans yawn, 

A new world Hes embosomed there. 
And it will yet in glory dawn 

Beyond our present Finisterre. 



MISCELLANEOUS 



OUR LIFE. 

What is our life ? Pray who can tell ? 

I ween 't is what we make it ; 
To live it ill, or live it well, 

Will surely make or break it. 

Life is no cheat, this world not dreams, 
Though cheats are always in it ; 

Life is not always what it seems, 
Yet truth some day must win it. 

Life is too dear, life is too short 

For any one to squander; 
'T IS not an old seaside resort. 

Where pleasure-seekers wander. 

Down to the sea the river flows, — 
Watch well its every motion : 

As shifts the tide, life comes and goes, 
Mysterious as the ocean. 

Life sweeps beside time's great divide. 
One long-continued present, — 

A bar that cuts the ocean's tide, 
And crumbles every moment. 



2 I 2 MISCELLANEOUS. 

Our life IS much or little worth, 
Just as we choose to make it ; 

One chance to win both heaven and earth, • 
'T will pay us well to take it. 



GOING. GONE. 

In the calm of the soul, musing long, musing deep, 
Stra,ngely calm, wide and deep, like the heart of the 
sea, 

Full of life, full of trust, half awake, half asleep. 
We forecast what in death we may be, may not be. 

Thus the lines fade away, naught we see of the shore. 
Time and bound melt and merge, falls the world's 
mighty arch, 
And the pose of our thoughts in the vast evermore. 
No command e'er disturbs, with the call. Up and 
march ! 



M ISC ELL A NE US. 2 I 3 



LET ME SING. 

Take from me my books so dear, 
Take them from me, if you will, — 
Pages wet with many a tear, 
Take them, I shall love them still, 
And rehearse them one by one. 
From early morn to setting sun ; 
But take not my tender lute. 
It is dearer than my books ; 
Leave me but my mellow flute, 
Sweeter than the m.urmuring brooks. 

Take my jewels bright and fair. 
Take them from me, if you m.ust ; 
They are treasures rich and rare, 
Free from stam or rime or rust ; 
In my heart I '11 hold them dear, 
Oft recall them with a tear, — 
Precious jewels, go or stay, 
Only leave m.e harp and song ; 
With them I can charm away 
The sorrow^s that to hfe belong. 

Take my tittles one and all, 
Give them to consuming fire : 
To a seat in house or hall 
Let me now no more aspire. 



2 I 4 M ISC ELL A NE US. 

Stript of honors, place and power, 
Let me pass life's little hour ; 
Pain and shame I can endure. 
Only leave the grace to sing. 
Write the promise, make it sure, 
With a pen from Phoebus' wing. 

From me take my whole estate, 
Take my lands and goods and gold, - 
Though the sum were grandly great, 
Value more than could be told ; 
Let them go, if we must part, 
Going will not break my heart ; 
Leave me but the poet's skill, 
The power to sing, the art divine, 
The poet's harp, the poet's quill, 
From earth to sky the world is mine. 



MISCELLA NEOUS. 2 I 5 



THE POET'S INVISIBLE FRIENDS. 

Amid the rhyming brotherhood we stand, 
Unseen we take each poet by the hand, 
And silent mean the thanks we glad would voice, 
Did fate and cirumstance support our choice. 

We hear the rustHng of your silken wing?. 
Soft as the voice that in the sea-shell sings : 
We know your haunts, your every trysting know, 
Share in your joys, and drain your cups of woe. 

Nor aught of blame for this infrets your song, 
Your lines, fair poets, draw our steps along ; 
Since your fair lingers o'er our keyboards gUde, 
We must as partners near you e'er abide. 

Yes, thanks, fair partners of the art divine. 
For every poem, page, and book, and line, — 
The gods did help you from Parnassus' height, 
Inspired your minds and taught you how to write. 

Accept, good poets all, our sincere thanks, 
And pass them down along your shining ranks ; 
It will not pay the debt, your due, we own, 
For all the seeds of truth your hands have sown. 



2 I 6 MISCELLA NE US. 

In childhood's tender years we heard you sing, 
Your songs did Hft us on devotion's ^^^ng ; 
In riper years our pulses faster beat, 
To hear the waltzing of your nimble feet. 

Sing on, sing on, fair men, and women, too, 
Your pregnant lines for us are all too few ; 
This world without your songs would pros}' be, 
A world of toils and cares by land and sea. 

Sing on, sing on, your silent partners near, 
Each added note with joy we wait to hear ; 
Your gifts and graces we may never share. 
But press the clusters that your vineyards bear. 

Those mystic paths your feet so noiseless tread, 
As walk the living mid the sainted dead, 
We know full well : we, too, are with you there, 
We follow forth your footsteps everywhere. 

We living v/atch beside the lyric dead, 
Admire the halos round each laureate head, 
And wait the trumpet from th' eternal skies 
That bids the sleepers to the banquet rise. 



MISCELLA NE US. 2 I 



THE WIND BLOWS BLEAK. 

The wind blows bleak the prison o'er, 
Elsewhere 't is mild as summer ; 
The atmosphere about the place 
Resembles chill Decem.ber. 
The soHd lines of masonry 
The cunning convict will defy ; 
Within the creaking iron gate, 
Behind the window's iron grate 
He knows full well his dismal fate. 

In damp, dark walls, 

Sepulchral halls, 

No sunshine glows. 

Nor bloom of rose : 

Words soft and kmd 

No welcome find. 
These walls for durance vile v/ere built. 
To show and shame the convict's guilt. 

The wind blows bleak along High street. 
Elsewhere 't is mild as summer ; 
The atmosphere throughout the place 
Resembles chill December. 
Like icebergs from the frigid zone, 
The stately mansions vie in tone ; 
The sohd plate is on each door, 
The inmates walk the marble floor, 
Enslaved to fashion more and more. 



2 I 8 M ISC ELL A NE US. 

Unlike beehives, 

Where labor thrives, 

Our eyes behold 

These quarters cold, 

Nor wonder why 

Here many die ; 
For Hfe loves freedom, sun and air, — 
These paint her cheeks in colors fair. 

The wind blows bleak on College Hill, 
Elsewhere 't is mild as summer ; 
The atmosphere about the place 
Resembles chill December. 
The college walls look bare and cold. 
As chill with age as damp with mould ; 
No fruit tree on the campus grows, 
Nor velvet moss, nor timid rose, 
The shade trees stand in frigid pose ; 

Like winter grim 

Professors prim, 

Pass up and down. 

Less smile than frown : 

What wonder then. 

More boys than men. 
The students make convivial cheer, 
And find it summer even here ! 

The wind blows bleak o'er cottage vales, 

As oft in chill November ; 

The atmosphere within these homes 



MISCELLA NE OUS. 2 1 9 

Is quite unlike December. 

The sunshine of the heart is there, 

And smiles as sweet as balmy air ; 

To simple habits all inured, 

The storm without is well endured, 

Of care and comfort well assured. 

Here work and play 

Consume the day, 

Sweet sleep at night 

Till morning light, 

When cheerful lays 

Begin the days. 
And love and care bring summer gales, 
Though winds blow bleak o'er hills and vales. 



2 2 O M ISC ELL A NE US. 



WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

Hail, Alma Mater ! Massachusetts' child, 
Amid the grand old Berkshire hills, thy throne 
Is firmly set -. thy ermine imdeiiled ; 
Thy sway extends through every clime and zone, 
Thy sceptre, truth, thou rulest mind alone. 

Fair Alma Mater, shepherdess art thou : 
Thy tender kids on sunny slope and plain 
Are fed ; or rather yet, as goddess now. 
Fair Alma Ceres, of the golden grain, — 
Thou well providest both for brawn and brain. 

Abounding Alma Mater, fruitful vine. 
Like those that grev/ upon the Cyprian hills ; 
As theirs, thy summer sun as bright doth shine ; 
Than theirs, more freely run thy ruby rills. 
With better wine thy hand the goblet fills. 

Fond Alma Mater, ales mater, thou 
Feeding thy eaglets 'mid encircling peaks 
Of mountains, majesty upon thy brow. 
Training the thunderbolts to the young beaks 
Against the tug of war, of Greeks with Greeks. 

Resplendent Alma Mater, home of art, 
Of science, advocate of manhness, 
A Roman virtue in a Christian heart ; 



M ISC ELLA NE OUS. 2 2 1 

Thou hast more than ideal loveHness, 
The finite doth the infinite express. 

Dear Alma Mater, thou dost hold thy place 
Among the high constellate college stars ; 
The world is fairer for thy beaming face, 
As bright as Venus, ruddy too, like Mars ; 
Shine on, till stars drift through Death's dusky bars. 



FAREWELL, OLD YEAR. 

Farewell, Old Year, farewell, since thou must go, 
With all thy garnered wealth of weal and woe, 
Farewell ; to honor bright, to friendships true. 
We make thee now one last and long adieu, 
And bid thee guard the jewels rich and rare, 
Committed to thy fond and faithful care, — 
The sacred seasons of the vanished year, 
The sainted dead, to living hearts so dear. 



2 2 2 MISCELLA NE US. 



THE BLIND POET. 

None are so blind, nor can there be, 
As those who can, but will not see, 
This saw does not apply to me, 

As poet ; 
Though I am blind as bat can be, 
I do the more desire to see 
The phantom form of Poesy, 

And know it. 

I often feel her magic spell, 
It takes me off, I know it well. 
The wherefor I could never tell. 

Though poet 
I love to feel this thrill and thrall. 
To hear the sweet and soulful call. 
But when the power begins to pall, 

I know it. 

In rightful mood, I skillful try 
To catch the form that waltzes by, 
With magic of the mental eye. 

As poet; 
But all my art doth she elude, 
And leave me in my solitude, 
Yet when she dare again mtrude, 

I know it. 



MISCELLANEO US. 223 

Deep in the chamber of my ear 
A slender voice I seem to hear : 
It says : I come to teach you fear, 

O poet ; 
If you should see my magic face, 
Or hold me in your fond embrace, 
You ne'er again could share my grace, 

Or know it. 

Then come and go; thy sovereign will 
Shall make my restless spirit still, 
Contentm^ent all my bosom fill. 

As poet. 
A poet's blindness I can bear. 
Since by it I so fully share, 
Thy unseen presence, matchless, fair. 

And know it. 



2 2 4 M ISC ELL A NE US. 



MULETTO'S DREAM. 

On famed Parnassus' height, whose summit strove 
To kiss the bending sky, that hung so sweet 
Around the land of Greece, when once its grove 
Of classic shades did seem divinely meet 
For poets, painters, sculptors, there to greet 
The spirit-forms that tuned the mystic lyre, 
And raised the artist from his humble seat, 
To light the lamp of genius, from the fire 
Prometheus stole, — the Muses still retire. 

The Muse, inspirer of this humble lay. 
Has kindled not the altar fires that burn 
Upon the heart, nor moved the hands that play 
Across the strings, as once, when from its urn. 
The rapt soul burst, to talk, and sing in turn 
Of love ; but now the chords of feeling shake 
With thoughts of bondage, — how the nations spurn 
The slave, in field and fen, mid bog and brake. 
Where crawls the Hzard and the wiry snake. 

'T is evening ; and the wearied bondman strays, 
To muse along Savannah's murmuring stream ; 
Upon whose bosom bright the moonbeam plays, 
While through the groves, the lamps of heaven beam 
As soft and silent as a fairy dream ; 
The zephyrs move among the fragrant bowerF, 



M ISC ELL A NE OUS. 225 

The lighted mansions o'er the landscape gleam, 
While heaven distills throughout the starry hours, 
The pearly dewdrops on the thirsty flowers. 

Mute are the bleating flocks and lowing herds 
That swell the chorus of a summer day, 
While droning insects and the warbling birds 
Have hailed the twiHght with their closing lay ; 
Such the befitting time and place to stray, 
Those pensive hours, betimes, so kindly given. 
When man retires from earthly cares away, 
To shady walks, or heights by tempest riven. 
That frown before the golden gates of heaven. 

The captive's heart here finds some feigned relief. 
While music seeks to charm the deathless woe, 
To sing unheard the story of his grief. 
Which only they who feel its pangs can know ; 
And softly now the burdened numbers flow. 
And echoing hills give back the mournful strain. 
Till thought on thought, in passion's furnace glow. 
And memory lights her faded realms again 
And points in ghostlike silence to her slain. 

Thus pass the fleeting hours, till hill and plain, 
Unconscious, bask in night's pale dreary noon. 
And deathlike silence leads her shadowy train. 
O'er the wide empire of the waning moon, 
Whose peaceful sway will close, for slaves, too soon ; 
The bondman rests beside the western Nile, 



2 26 MISCELLA NE US. 

While sleep bestows the rich, unfailing boon, 
To boldly chase some pleasing thought awhile, 
And careworn brows to wrinkle with a smile. 

And now, in vision's fairy realm, and borne 

On fancy's wings, through many a pleasant scene, 

Muletto feels a thrill of joy; now torn 

Away from petty tyrants, and their green 

And blood-wet fields, the ocean rolls between. 

He dreams ; but little dreams that round him waves 

The friendly tree whose boughs so often screen 

Him in his walks. He bends among those graves 

Of silent sleepers, free in death, once slaves. 

Muletto, tell us what is now the bright 

And pleasing vision that so stirs thy soul. 

And o'er thy features throws a ray of light ? 

Art thou sailing where the billows roll, 

Toward thy native home, the distant goal 

To which desire now unobstructed leads ? 

Aye ! thou hast swiftly passed the deep, the shoal, 

For miles are only moments on the steeds 

Of fancy borne, to kiss the fragrant meads. 

For where the waters of the Niger sweep 
Their shining waves, o'er Afric's golden sand. 
Toward the blue waters of the mighty deep. 
Near where at last they mingle hand in hand, 
Thou child of sunny skies and verdant land, 
Was once thy home of happiness. Then sleep. 



M ISC ELL A NE US. 227 

While angels hovering round delight to stand, 
And fan thy burning brow, and vigils keep, 
O'er such an one as only wakes to weep. 

Oh ! Africa, hast thou no tears to shed ? 

No voice to speak ? No valiant warrior's arm 

To strike ? Aye ! bitter tears, as if thy head 

Were made a fountain, and a voice to alarm. 

But thou hast no warriors that can harm 

The nations that oppress thee ; yet thy hands. 

Thy suppHant hands are raised — no magic charm. 

But like a mother, call'st to many lands 

To send thy children back, or break their bands. 

Is there no voice that answers to thy call ? 

No ear that bends to Hsten to thy prayer ? 

No eye that sees the mourning-weed — the pall 

Of sorrow gathering on thy brow so fair 

In ancient days ? Thy land was once the lair 

Of learning, now the Hon's ; once the womb 

Of many an honored son ; but where, oh! where 

Are ye ? Speak now from out death's saddening gloom. 

Was not thy birthplace brighter than thy tomb ? 

Oh, smiHng land, the birthplace of the free ! 
Thou couldst not nourish slaves among thy flowers, 
Where spicy breezes blow, and songs of glee 
Make evening pleasant ; 'neath the fragrant bowers, 
Where youth and beauty while away the hours ; 
The mourning captive bends beneath thy sky 



2 28 M ISC ELLA NE US. 

And smiles to think he 's free. The hated powers 

Of human slavery, now eluded, lie 

In distant lands, to waste away and die. 

How sweet Muletto's childhood, spent along 
The bank of Niger, scion of a race 
Who stir the fount of feeling with a song, 
And many a kind and noble feeling trace, 
On the heart's dial-plate, the human face. 
Would that this were not a dream ; for where 
Thy spirit claps her wings to think the race 
Is ended, we would gladly leave thee there. 
Friends to embrace thee, once a mother's care. 

'T is morn ; Aurora's battlements are bright, 

And rosy curtains deck the eastern sky. 

While Venus, jealous of the dawning light, 

Has turned away her love-inspiring eye ; 

The world awakes, and turns again to try 

The doubtful chance, at fickle Fortune's wheel, 

To bow at Mammon's shrine, there basely lie. 

Who scarce of love the princely tribute deal 

To hands that serve, and hearts taught how to feel. 

But naught shall break the royal seal of death. 
That locks the bondman in his dreamless sleep ; 
No morn for him inspires the mortal breath, 
Or wakes to toil, to suffer, and to weep ; 
Life's iron bars no more their prisoner keep. 
No angry clouds across his sky are driven. 



MIS CELL ANEO US. 229 

No seas to pass, no madly surging deep, 

But meekly bearing all that fate had given, 

The slave has found a harp, a crown — in heaven. 



THE DUSTY MILLER OF WATERFORD. 

The Jordan stream runs dark and slow. 

Among the rushes high and low 

It bends and twirls, now in, now out, 

Its eddies home for dace and trout ; 

Among the alders fresh and green. 

The dimples of its cheeks are seen ; 

But ere it leaps into the bay, 

A milldam banks its seaward way, 

And just beyond the old gristmill, 

Has lived for years, and lives there still. 

Within his hut of brick and board, 

The dusty miller of Waterford. 

He is not wise in learning's lore, 
He never passed a college door ; 
His words are few, his temper 's sweet, 
He lives in silence's retreat ; 
His long locks filled with mealy dust. 
He looks quite like a walking bust ; 
He knows enough to start the wheel 
And coarse or fine to grind the meal. 



JM ISC ELL A NE US. 

To pick with care the nether stone, 
To stop whene'er his work is done ; 
This is the man — no god adored, 
The dusty miller of Waterford. 

When farmers bring their grists to grind, 
To the old mill, they always find 
The miller there, at morn or eve, — 
He asks from duty no reprieve ; 
The bags of grain he witting eyes. 
Or large or small, whate'er the size, 
He knows how much each one contains. 
His tolls are just, no one complains, 
If grists are promised — mark the hours. 
You may depend on miller Powers, 
By whom deception is abhorred. 
The dusty miller of Waterford. 

No deep ambition stirs his breast. 

No hunt for place disturbs his rest ; 

He has no use for bonds or banks, 

He never patronizes cranks ; 

He thinks he never lost a penny. 

To lose he never yet had many ; 

He votes on every voting day, 

But always votes the good old way ; 

The sun sets always in the west. 

The same old card suits him the best, — 

He, who in life no points has scored. 

The dusty miller of Waterford. 



M ISC ELLA NE US. 2 3 I 

Of course some day he "11 calmly die. 

By Jordan's stream will sweetly lie : 

The old mill, too, some day will rot, 

The miller's name will be forgot ; 

The sluggish stream may cease to flow, — 

Thus endeth all things here below. 

Is hfe a charm ? Is it a cheat ? 

The questions asked the same repeat ; 

So look whichever way you will, 

Say to your beatmg heart, be still ! 

For so lived he in deed and word. 

The dusty miller of Waterford. 



THE WEEPING ASH. 

Beneath a weeping ash I sit. 

This bonnie, breezy, blithesome day ; 

Here, years agone, I planted it, — 

From branch to branch what memories play 

It was a slender sapling then, 
And I a stripHng youth as well ; 

I boy am still, but rank with men. 
The tree may its own story tell : 

" The gardener to the nursery come, 

With pick and spade, in wond'rous glee, 
While at his heels, from hall and home. 
Each college boy now chose a tree. 



232 MISCELLA NEO US. 

" One wanted this, one wanted that, 
The reasons for were wan and wee ; 
A ruddy youth, with silken hat, 
For reasons good selected me. 

" So on the campus I was placed, 
The trees of every grain among ; 
To south and east the hillside faced, 
And there to precious life I clung. 

'' The summer drouth was peril-fraught. 
The winters cold I scarce could bear; 
My roots adovvn the deep shale sought 
To tap the springs that trickled there. 

'' So when the swallows came again. 

And springtime joys were everywhere, 
My callow boughs were fruitful then. 
My heart Avas full of praise and prayer. 

'* The seasons came and went apace, 
The campus rang with voices new ; 
The old came back to see the place. 
And on the hillside still I grew. 

"I felt alway my mission call, 

That I for others' good must grow ; 
This was, indeed, my all in all, — 
No greater good could life bestow. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 233 

" And so when men and maidens meet 
On gala days to sit and sing, 
Beneath my arch they often greet, 
And life becomes an earnest thing. 

" My ashen boughs are firm and strong, 

Though not with breadth and beauty graced ; 
But life to service bent is long, — 
May mine in honor thus be traced." 

Live on, live on, oh, goodly tree, 

Till years on years shall crown thy brow, 

And glad I am I planted thee, 
To link together then and now. 

Live on, live on, ye maids and men, 

Survivors of those college days ; 
To each of us the now as then 

Demands the service of our praise. 

Live on, live on, ye joyous host. 
Who tread the campus of to-day ; 

To hve to serve, be this your boast, 
And proudly march the upward way. 

Live on, live on, ye teeming throngs, 
The old and young of everywhere ; 

To each of us this trust belongs : 
Make others happy by your care. 



234 MI SC ELL A NE US. 



THE ENGLISH TONGUE. 

Mother language, English tongue, 
Thou hast praises to be sung ; 
Born and bred on Bactrian plains, 
Sanscrit for thee still remains. 

Reaching downward to the Flood, 
Mede and Persian bore thy blood ; 
Northward turned, didst rest in peace 
On the Tauric Chersonese. 

Westward then to Jutland came 
Teutons of the Saxon name : 
The Angles then to Britain went, 
Drove the Picts and Scots from Kent. 

Nested in the British Isles, 

Rugged cliffs and deep defiles, 

Aryan in thy love of home. 

Thou didst cease, Fair Tongue, to roam. 

Mystic runes to thee were born. 
On hilt of sword, or drinking horn ; 
Gildas taught thee erst to write, 
C^edmon was thy jewel bright. 



MISCELLA NE US. 235 

Thor and Woden were thy gods, 
King and Witan claimed the clods ; 
Earls and Thanes the titles took, 
Wrote them in the Bockland book. 

'Gainst thy accents, Celt and Dane 
Fought with all their might and main ; 
Egbert made the Saxon rule, 
Alfred sent thee on to school. 

Monks and priests of Romish style. 
Monks and priests from Erin's isle. 
Drew thee from thy pagan ways, 
Taught thee how to pray and praise. 

Normans came, ten-sixty-six, 
French with English 'gan to mix ; 
Saxon was the stronger kin, 
Norman blood was rather thin. 

Mother language, English tongue. 
Foreign dialects among. 
Thou hast held a regal sway, 
May'st thou win each trial day. 



2^6 MISCELLANEO US. 



THE REMEDY. 

In this world, this world of trouble, 
Wave to wave succeeding, 

Where afflictions, single, double. 
Set men's hearts to bleeding, 

Hard it is to find rehef, 

Find a solace for our grief 

Those that live the lowest, humblest, 

In the town or city, 
Think their lot is not the choicest. 

Greater is the pity ; 
They must stand and shut their teeth, 
Pride above and hell beneath. 

If they live upon the surface. 

And they find their level. 
They are still too near the bad place, 

All too near the d ; 

Here they grumble night and mom. 
Wishing they were never bom. 

If they climb the ascending ladder. 

Scale the heights of glory, 
At the top they 're all the sadder, — 

T is the same old story; 
They have fought the battle through. 
And there 's nothing more to do. 



M ISC ELLA NE US. 237 

List ye ! stop your sighing, seething ; 

If you cannot stand it, 
Just lie down and stop your breathing, 

That, you see, will end it ; 
Pay this debt and you are square, 
Hold your breath and you are there. 



THE POET RE-READS. 

Convincing light now strikes his eyes, 

Enough to break the windows. 
Would it had come in some disguise, 

And not like leaded line prose ; 
For in this light he reads again, 

But with bewildering vision. 
The lines he wrote for other men, 

And this is his decision : 

He sees what ne'er he saw before, 

The hues are soft and Hmpid ; 
A bleeding heart has dyed them o'er, 

But not by dart of Cupid. 
A thousand pin-points drain the heart. 

If not by wisdom shielded. 
By slow degrees the better part 

In bloody sweat is yielded. 



238 MI SC ELL A NE US. 

The poet's inkstand is his heart ; 

Within its purple fountains, 
He dips his pen with god-Hke art 

And moves both men and mountains, 
Till imps and elves have tapped his veins 

And drawn his inspiration, 
And left him nothing for his pains, 

But loss of animation. 



SLEEP AND DEATH. 

'T IS noon of night, day's grand divide, 
As 'twixt the flood and ebbing-tide, — 
'T is slumbers sweet and balmy hour, 
When sense is weak, the soul has power. 

When goes the wakeful spirit forth, 
To east and west, to south and north. 
Do fancies turn to real fact 
And passive moods begin to act ? 

With rapid feet, but noiseless tread. 
Yea, silent as the sleeping dead. 
What hinders now the soul's retreat. 
Its kith and kin to go and greet? 

Ah ! who can tell ? 'T is mystery deep, 
'T is something more than senseless sleep 
Who pulls the eyelids to a close 
And lures the senses to repose ? 



M ISC ELLA NE US. 239 

Analogies are scanty here, 
Death as a sleep will oft appear ; 
But sleep and death are wide apart, 
Are strangers to each other's art. 

Sleep draws the curtain, lulls to rest, 
The soul may now do what is best : 
In blissful quiet stay at home, 
Or, better still, abroad may roam. 

The soul at death hastes to advance, 
Now which the true, and which the trance ? 
The life we leave, the life we find. 
The soul we take, or leave behind ? 

The vital flame forever burns, — 
That better part to God returns. 
The psychic man goes back to dust. 
By law primeval, wise and just. 

From sleep and death we shall be free, 
On thy fair shores, Eternity ; 
That morn awake that knows no night. 
Advancing day, eternal light. 



240 M ISC ELLA NE US. 



THE FOUNDLING. 

A BASKET new 

And robe of blue, 
How strange a thing to see 

At morning hour, 

Beside my door. 
What can the matter be ? 
I '11 lift the robe, at any rate, — 
It is a foundling, sure as fate. 

Alack-a-day, 

I '11 go my way. 
Who brought, will find it here ; 

False one, 't is thine. 

Not baby mine ; 
Or else some mother dear, 
With children more than food or lands, 
Has left the youngest on my hands. 

I '11 look again, 

And then, and then — 
Ah ! me, it is awake ; 

That smile so sweet. 

Those hands and feet 
Implore me now to take 
The little foundling on my arm, — 
To take it up can do no harm. 



M ISC ELL A NE OUS. 2\\ 

Your eyes are blue, 

A color true, 
Well shaped your little nose is, 

Your features fine, — 

Wish you were mine ! 
You are my little Moses ; 
Yes, a good mother I will be 
It is God's gift to me : yes, me. 

New life and light 

And visions bright 
Command a royal blessing. 

My heart grows warm. 

This little form 
My own is closely pressing ; 
Darling, thou hast found a mother. 
Thou shalt never know another. 



242 M ISC ELL A NE US. 



THE HONEST TRUTH AND A', SIRS. 

If you 've anything to tell - 

Of yourself or neighbor, 
Seems it somehow just as well 

Facts not to belabor ; 
But tell things as they are, sirs, 
The honest truth and a', sirs. 

Men must not prevaricate — 

Men in public station ; 
'T is a crime against the state, 

An insult to the nation ; 
Yet truth is not the style, sirs, 
The honest truth and a', sirs. 

Courts of law are rigid things, 
Hold us tight as can be ; 

Fancy dares not spread her wings, 
Nemine co7i. dicente ; 

So truth is here the style, sirs. 

The honest truth and a', sirs. 

The poets, priests and preachers 
Give us good examples ; 

Yet some are naught but teachers. 
We must scan their samples. 

The truth is what we want, sirs, 

The honest truth and a', sirs, 



M ISC ELLA NEOUS. 243 

Troth and truth, 'twixt man and wife, 

A paradise is home ; 
When they 're broken then is Hfe 

A pandemonium. 
We look for truth at home, sirs. 
The honest truth and a', sirs. 

That confidence 'twixt man and man, 

In business, church and state. 
Should build on the straightforward plan. 

Is quite beyond debate ; 
The best of all is truth, sirs. 
The honest truth and a', sirs. 



MY FRIEND AND I. 

Remembered day, how blest thou art, 
That saw when first we greeted ; 

One gave the hand, and one the heart, 
The heart to hand was meeted. 

We 've travelled far by sea and land. 

But always traveled heart in hand, 
My friend and I. 

My friend, ofttimes to service bent. 
My drooping head supporteth. 

Or if I 'm wronged with foul intent. 
As readily avengeth ; 



2 44 MISCELLANEO US. 

Though others' wrongs invoke our blows, 
Our mutual faults we ne'er disclose, 
My friend and I. 

Ancestral heroes are our pride ; 

My friend's a son of thunder, — 
Few of his race in peace have died. 

For most were sawn asunder ; 
I claim to be of martyr blood. 
Thus have we come through fire and flood. 
My friend and I. 

Adulteration, sham and show. 
By shoddy, chalk, or chicory, 

Is quite unlike my friend, I know, 
Descended from old hickory ; 

More grit or grain is not his need. 

In that we both are well agreed, 

My friend and I. 

Most people think 't is very plain. 
My friend 's a tough old fellow ; 

When things go wrong he does raise cane. 
Till heads are mauled and mellow ; 

But all we ask is what is right. 

This we must have, or we '11 show fight. 
My friend and I. 

But friends that meet must surely part, 
The best of friends have parted. 



M ISC ELL A NE OUS. 245 

My friend is very stout of heart, 

But I am tender-hearted ; 
At death's dark door, when Hfe is through, 
We must exchange our last adieu. 
My cane and I. 



A MOMENT'S DOUBT. 

A SHADOW flitteth by, 

Must be 't is in my eye. 

No cloud is in the sky, 
And yet a change came over me, 
The cause of which I do not see. 

'T was sudden, Hke a thrill 
Of pain, cold as a chill — 
It seemed to bode me ill ; 
But no, 't is light and bright again, 
So if no shadow, then \\ hat then ? 

Didst thou in thy high place 
A moment veil thy face, 
O, sun ? I wait thy grace ; 
Thou seest all things, let me see 
The cloud that was 'twixt me and thee. 



246 MISCELLA NE O US. 

Not on my face, not mine, 
I saw a cloud on thine, — 
Faith does not ahvays shine ; 

It was the shadow of a doubt ; 

Ah, me ! what can I be about ? 

It had a demon's look, 
It sprang from out some nook. 
Essayed my heart to hook ; 
I felt a thrill, I feel no thrall, 
Wish I that doubt came not at all. 

No loss without some gain, 
Let pleasure banish pain, 
Now my reward is plain, 
Faith shallow once is ocean deep, 
The eye faith-Ht its vigils keep. 



A GOLDEN WEDDING. 

With trumpet blasts, and song and cheer. 
The Hebrews hailed their jubilee, 

As well they might — that fiftieth year 
Brought to the slave his liberty. 

But not with trumpets loud and long, 

Hail we this golden jubilee ; 
Some graver notes, some tender song. 

Must breathe through all our minstrelsy. 



MISCELLA NE OUS. 247 

Let bridal strains float on the air, 
Sobered with age, with love aglow ; 

Before us stands a wedded pair, 
Married just fifty years ago. 

A half a hundred years agone, 

They both were young, nor aged now ; 

The nuptial day made haste to dawn, 
The day that heard the plighted vow. 

To half a hundred years adieu ; 

Who can recount their varied store ? 
The years seem many, yet how few ! 

The ages hold so many more. 

The fleeting years this wedded pair 
Their plight and troth have truly kept, 

The bridegroom and his lady fair 
Apart have neither smiled nor wept. 

Such is the bhss of wedded Hves, 
When each for other lives and loves. 

And pure afl"ection grows and thrives. 
Amid the cooing of the doves. 

A half a hundred fleeting years ! 

What memories round the hearthstone cHng ! 
More joy than woes, more smiles than tears, 

The circUng seasons kindly bring. 



248 MI SC ELL A NE US. 

Three generations sprung from one! 

We fondly look them o'er and o'er, 
Thank God for these, work well begun. 

And room enough for many more. 

But some have gone past sun and star. 
Are lost to us, but not to love ; 

By faith we sweep the worlds afar, 
And see them in the heavens above. 

Death flings its shadow o'er this day, 
But cannot blight our loves or lives ; 

Christ is the Hfe, the truth, the way, 
And he who trusts Him always thrives. 

This wedded pair congratulate, 
Our wishes best let them receive ; 

May they still live to demonstrate 
How blest who on the Lord believe. 



DREAMLAND. 

The land of dreams, I know it well, 
I often seek its magic spell ; 
I close my eyes, to sleep incline, 
And soon that balmy land is mine. 



M ISC ELL A NE US. 2 49 

The past of life is all forgot, 
Even the pledged forget-me-not ; 
Time's joys and sorrows are no more 
To him who finds this fairy shore. 

The land of dreams, 't is freedom's land : 
No fetters bind the lily hand, 
No chain enthralls the buoyant mind, — 
A stronger land no one can find. 

Where hes this land ? Pray, who can tell ? 
A land where only transients dwell ; 
Who leads us to this trysting place ? 
An escort with an angel's face. 

Each sense is now obliviousness. 
We lose our hold on consciousness ; 
But 't is not death we simulate. 
The vital air our lungs inflate. 

It is no vision, clear and meet, 
With part and counterpart complete ; 
No ties to dreamland e'er belong. 
No nexus has it, weak or strong. 

It is a world all by itself. 
Yet haunted not by ghoul or elf, — 
A land of mystery complete 
With inborn wonders all replete. 



250 



MISCELLANEO US. 



UNDER THE SHADOWS. 

The light is sweet, 't is pleasant to the eye, 
We hail with joy the coming of the morn. 
And yet we scarce can look upon the sun, 
Save through a veil of mist, or cloud of smoke ; 
What then? Make we the shadows also sweet? 
Look up; what see you ? 'T is the vaulted sky, 
An arch of blue, so deep 't is deeper than 
The deepest sea ; so blue 't is bluer than 
The deep blue sea. Ah, me ! 't is beautiful ! — 
The sun now shoots his beams of light a-through, 
And heaven quivers in the glowing heat ; 
Our senses are oppressed ; the dazzled eye 
Now droops ; we sigh to find some sweet relief 
It comes ; the zephyrs fan white clouds across 
Aerial deeps ; 't is heaven's parasol ; 
What beauty this and comfort unsurpassed, 
Under the shadows ! sigh not, mortal man. 
Rejoice; thou canst not bear the noontide glow, 
But for a time ; the evening shadows fall 
To give thee rest, to close thy heavy lids, 
And then, with morning dawn, to give thee light 
In measure ; for some days are dark as night ; 
The darkness thus abounds with blessings large, 
And heaven will sweeter be to such as live 
Contented, restful, full of blessed hope, 
Beneath the shadows of their earthly lot. 



MISCELLA NEO US. 2 5 I 



THE BARTER MARKET. 

" They have sold a girl for wine." — Joel iii., 3. 

The world is full of boys and girls, 
Who men and women grow to be, 
And fops and flirts, with canes and curls, 
Nor simpler trash one cares to see ; 
The fops and flirts we will not count, — 
If sold, would bring no great amount ; 
But boys are boys : the lads are lords ; 
The girls, of course, we ladies call, 
And matrimony best afl'ords 
A barter market for them all ; 
The boys are buyers — only think ! — 
The girls are sold for wine to drink. 

So was it when, with stony hearts. 
The Gentiles spoiled the land divine 
And hawked about in Grecian marts 
The captive maids of Palestine ; — 
Their dark brows fair as virgin rills, 
As clusters from the Cyprian hills ; 
For purple clusters plenteous grew 
For Athens' louts and Lesbian sage. 
And captive maids were plenty, too. 
And wine and wantonness the rage ; 
The boys were buyers — only think ! — 
The girls were sold for wine to drink. 



252 



M ISC ELL A NEO US. 

This vision which the prophet scribes 
Of men and maids in Javan's clime, 
Was pregnant with more distant tribes, 
And foUies of this modern time ; 
For still the purple clusters grow, 
The vats with ruby wine overflow ; 
Still men love wine and women, too, 
And maids are plenty, now as then ; 
But strangely changed from old to new, 
This traffic in the souls of men ; 
Still boys are buyers — only think ! — 
The girls still sold for wine to drink. 

But churches are the slave-marts now. 
Where priest and parent join to sell 
The maid who takes the marriage vow 
And little dreams but all is well ; 
For rich in promise, poor in land, 
The man who takes this maiden's hand ; 
But ardent spirits are the prize 
This crafty bidder most desires. 
And for them offers all his lies, 
The lies which feed those vestal fires ; 
The wife is wanted for her work, 
The man 's a loafer and a shirk. 

For when the honeymoon is past, 
And all have left the happy pair. 
To settle down at home, at last, 
To honest work and common fare, 



M ISC ELL A NE OUS. 253 

The fatal fact at once comes out, 

The man is but a drinking lout ; 

1 he woman works, and weeps, and waits, 

And hopes for him a better Hfe ; 

'T is vain to fight against the fates, 

She is, alas ! a drunkard's wife ; 

Then stop such sales with nod and wink, 

Nor girls be sold for wine to drink. 



SIGN THE PLEDGE. 

Welcome, welcome, weary stranger, 
Welcome to our hearts and home ; 

We will share thy need and danger, 
Cease in woe and want to roam ; 

This the welcome Temperance sends: 

Join our band for we are friends. 

Chorus. 
Sign the pledge, for temperance sign, 
Sign the pledge, and quit the wine. 
Sign the pledge, nor buy nor sell, 
Sign the pledge, and all is well. 

Would you find both peace and plenty. 
Would you at all ages thrive. 

And be wise at five and twenty, 
And be young at seventy-five, — 



2 54 M ISC ELL A NE US. 

Would you be a noble man ? 
Then accept the temperance plan. 

Sign the pledge, etc. 

Would you have the gold of goodness, 
Life without a blot or blight, 

Would you have the pearl of gladness, 
Rosy as the morning light. 

Would you bless the Hve-long day ? 

Then adopt the temperance way. 

Sign the pledge, etc. 

Would you share this hearty welcome, 
Would you know this blessed thrift, 

Lead the life so pure and healthsome, 
And the fallen ones uplift. 

Would you be to wisdom true ? 

This is then what you must do. 

Sign the pledge, etc. 

Brothers, would you lift the falling, 
Would you woo the wanderers back 

To pursue a worthy calling. 

Would you keep them on the track ? 

Tell them, then, just what to do — 

Always be to temperance true. 

Sign the pledge, etc. 



MI SC ELL A NEOUS. 255 



THE BELLS. 

List, list, there 's music in the air. 

Its wavelets ripple soft and slow, 

As in and out they pulsing go ; 

'T is now so faint, again so fair, 

A moment here, and next 't is there. 

One scarcely knows the where and why. 

Awake, asleep ? Pray, tell who can ; 

Music of bird, or beast, or man ? 

Bells of earth, or air, or sky ? 

Awake, O sleeper, and reply ! 

Earth's chimes are chequered, list and see. 

What bell-notes float o'er land and sea. 

'Tis dark and threatening by the sea. 

The salt wind stiffening to a gale. 

While many a shoreman's face grows pale, 

As sweeps the angry storm a-lea. 

And ominous as they can be, 

The buoy-bells dancing on the wave, 

Tolled by the nereids of the deep, 

Bells that are not oft asleep, 

With bell-strokes solemn as the grave. 

Strokes echoed back from ocean cave ; 

Ring on, storm bells, through brine and breeze, 

Till man shall cease to sail the seas. 



256 Alls CELL A NE US. 

Toll, mournful bells, by hill and vale, 

Let every stroke be loud and long ; 

Toll, toll with strokes both slow and strong, 

Since ye the stroke of death bewail, 

As hearts are stilled and faces pale ; 

'T is to the Hving, not the dead. 

Ye toll the solemn requiem knell. 

And to survivors plainly tell 

The truth that many hear with dread ; 

Toll on, toll on, till death is past, 

And funeral bells shall cease at last. 

Hark, hark, what now? I seem to hear 
The tinklings of a tiny bell ; 
Am I awake ? I scarce can tell. 
The sound is sweet, or far or near, — 
How it regales the listening ear ! 
Ah, mid the fresh, cool mountain air, 
The shepherds watch their gentle flocks 
By Alpine streams and crags and rocks. 
And these soft chimes the while declare 
The sheep are feeding here and there ; 
Ring on, ring on, ye mountain chimes. 
Till flocks shall feed in fairer climes. 

I hst again and faintly hear 

The music of cathedral bells ; 

It faints and freshens, sinks and swells, — 

'T is music sweet and soft and clear, 

Its numbers sweep the upper sphere. 



M ISC ELLA NE OUS. 2 5 7 

It lifts the soul the clouds among, 
The solemn cadence moves the heart, 
It holds us by its matchless art, 
Till every chord is tensely strung, 
As if 't were notes by angels sung ; 
Ring on, oh ! ye cathedral chimes. 
Till earth shall reach millennial times. 



THE POET'S CONFESSION. 

He reads his poems now and then. 

And counts them o'er his fingers ten ; 

By scores and hundreds up they run. 

Poor, shambHng rhymes, and some well done : 

But they have lost their charm for him, 

Though once as dear as life or limb. 

When first he saw them waltzing by, 

With magic of his mental eye, 

A halo arched each radiant head, — 

His soul in chains was captive led ; 

He scarce could draw his eyes away. 

But wooed and watched them, day by day. 

But one by one he laid them by, 
Beneath the lid they calmly lie, 
In clean, white robes, but cold and dead, 
Embalmed and yet unburied ; 



258 M ISC ELLA NE US. 

Cremated they may some day be, 
Their ashes as the wild winds free. 



He sees wherein the mischief Hes : 

Too jealous he of others' eyes; 

Had he but flung out on the air 

The written leaves, some here, some there, 

Had served to wing a Cupid's dart, 

Or light the fires that warm the heart. 

And yet his muse, true as the rose, 
For this no cold resentment shows ; 
She kindly warms each sluggish vein. 
And with her fancies fills his brain; 
She offers still her golden pen, 
And bids him write, and write again. 

The light shines not alone for one, 
Millions may bask beneath the sun ; 
Millions of hearts will faster beat. 
When all each other warmly greet, — 
The eye that meets no other eye 
Will lose its luster, pale and die. 

The gods that on Olympus feed, 
To serve must have a Ganymede ; 
The hand that holds a poet's pen. 
May pass the cup to mortal men. 
And in the mixture, sparkfing, bright, 
All grateful juices will unite. 



M ISC ELL A NE OUS. 259 

Speak out, ye who must speak in rhyme, 
Nor fear Parnassus' heights to dimb, 
Nor fear the critic's ruthless quill, — 
His venom yours must never fill ; 
Nor fill your cup with must and jests, 
With Lesbian wine regale your guests. 



EN VOYAGE. 

" Twenty minutes for refreshments ! 
Through the cars the echoes waft ; 

" Wines and hquors by the package. 
And Toronto ale on draught.'" 
See, this is St. Thomas station, — 
Worthy saint, but worthless nation ; 
Sell they liquors here by law? 
Bless me, this is Canadaw! 



2 6o MISCELLA NE US. 



LITTLE LENA. 

Little Lena, did you know her ? 

She has passed death's portal cold, 
Gone to him who did bestow her, 

Child of more than mortal mold. 

Lovely Lena, wee and winsome, 
Smile as sweet as summer morn, 

Form and features all so handsome. 
Fairest seemed of woman bom. 

Tender Lena, frail and fragile, 

Yet as nimble as a fawn, 
Every movement lithe and agile. 

Eyes as liquid as the dawn. 

Gentle Lena, at her coming 
Smiles ht up the careworn face, 

Sweetest words her fair lips humming 
With a seraph's nameless grace. 

Happy Lena, can we wonder 
That the angels passing by 

Saw her, claimed her, and up yonder 
Bore her to their native sky? 



MISCELLANEO US. 2 6 1 

Angel Lena, how we miss thee, 
Almost would we call thee back, 

That our lips once more might kiss thee, 
Starting on thy heavenward track. 

Sainted Lena, heaven claims thee, 
We would seek that better land ; 

There we hope some day to meet thee. 
There to clasp thy Hly hand. 



THE DREAM. 

Old and wrinkled, brown and blind, 

I somehow love to ken, 
Of those pinks of womankind, 

We girls at eight and ten. 

What a bevy, I declare. 
Younger some, and older. 

It was ''we girls" everywhere. 
This that made us boldei. 

Lou, the tallest of the girls, 

Was eldest of the seven ; 
Mollie had a head of curls, 

And she was near eleven. 



2 62 MISCELLA NE US. 

Betsey was a sunny blonde, 
Barbara, a brunette, 

A blooming rose was Rosamond, 
A pearl was Margaret. 

'] he nicest was Palastra, 
As nice as she could be ; 

The six have gone ad astra, 
And I am eighty-three. 

I have felt it much of late, 
'T is strange as it can be, 

As if I now were only eight, 
Instead of eighty-three. 

Superstitious I am not, 
I tell it as a dream ; 

Call it this, I care not what. 
Things are not as they seem. 

I dreamed I was in heaven, 
That blessed, blessed place. 

And there were we girls seven. 
Now standino- face to face. 



o 



The angels stood around us, 
T hey looked somehow so queer, 

As if they 'd like to join us. 
Yet wouldn't interfere. 



M ISC ELLA NEOUS. 263 

We sat and sang together, 

We walked and talked as well ; 

'T was always pleasant weather, 
And pleasant there to dwell. 

But dreams are mostly short-lived 

And full of sentiment, 
I see I still am here, hived 

In my clay tenement. 

Old and wrinkled, brown and blind, 

I shall not always be ; 
Youth departed I shall find, 

Although I 'm eighty-three. 

For soon I go to heaven, 

God and the good to see ; 
How happy then — the seven — 

We girls will always be. 



264 M ISC ELLA NE US, 

THE HUMAN VOICE. 

" One that hath a pleasant voice." 

Just through the thin partition wall, 

I hear the cadence rise and fall — 

The music of a human voice, 

In conversation chaste and choice ; 

The tones now deep and clear and strong, 

Sweep Hke an avalanche along ; 

Now smooth and soft as musicals. 

Or chants intoned at festivals ; 

Now quick the syllables repeat. 

Till in one solid tone they meet ; 

Now pulsed and passioned like a bell. 

The tones first rise, then sink, then swell. 

These cadences, how they dehght ! 

They turn to day the darkest night ; 

Elastic sounds, they rival still 

The song thrush and the whippoorwill; 

E'en songs that thrill at hush of eve, 

When minstrel birds in song-note breathe, 

As when from wall and bush and tree. 

The bluebird twitters blithe and free, 

Or sweetly trills the bobolink. 

More charming still the dark chewink ; 

Thousands of voices fill our ears. 

Revive our spirits, calm our fears. 

Yet none of these from earth or air. 

With thine, O man, can well compare. 



MIS CELL A NEOUS. 265 

The human voices the divine, 

So earth and heaven must here combine, 

Save only 't is in measure small. 

That they can be compared at all. 

The voice of God we always hear, 

Sometimes with joy, sometimes mth fear; 

He whispers in the gentle breeze, 

He sighs and sings among the trees, 

His noiseless breathings animate 

The frame of nature grandly great ; 

He roars adown the waterfall, 

The billows answer to his call ; 

From earth to heaven God's voices rise 

In crowning thunders of the skies. 

But what is man in his estate ? 

Not Hke the Lord, supremely great ; 

He can the Master imitate. 

His gracious will he can declare, 

Hear and be heard now here, now there, 

Can speak to aid a worthy cause. 

Can preach obedience to the laws. 

Can stand a safeguard to the state, 

Of order be the advocate ; 

He for th' oppressed can warmly plead. 

Can soothe the hearts that ache and bleed, 

Can comfort those that weep and sigh. 

And teach the living how to die. 



266 M ISC ELLA NE US. 

In home and school and church and state, 
The voice and heart are correlate : 
Without the other, each would stand 
As worthless as a rope of sand : 
Thy voice, O friend, is princely sweet. 
Since voice and heart together meet. 



OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. 

The Mosquito. 

If now the right to write in rhyme, 
Is subject grand and style sublime, 
I yield the point, but not my quill. 
And scribble on in metre still. 

The humblest with the highest mix, 
By cross and crown, and crucifix. 
And birds of various worth and wing 
Have equal right to sit and sing. 

The bloom and blush and scent of rose 
Will change to verse the plainest prose. 
If, soft as velvet, rich in shades. 
The poet's power the soul pervades. 

A Cowper did the sofa praise. 

And humblest themes have sweetest lays ; 

Thus tempted by the art divine. 

My theme. Mosquito, shall be thine. 



MISCELLA NEOUS. 26 J 

From temperate to torrid zone, 
The realm of nature is thine own ; 
Through sable hours, 'neath summer skies. 
No drooping lids obscure thine eyes. 

And yet thou hast a various lot, 
In wet and dry, and cold and hot, 
In shape and size and color, too, 
And songs that are both old and new. 

The study of mankind is man. 
And this. Mosquito, is thy plan ; 
The science of thy head and heart. 
Homologous to man thou art. 

In northern climes, how strong thy limbs. 
How tuneful are thy evening hymns, 
How quick perception takes the scent, 
When thou on business art intent. 

In common slang thou art a bore. 
So is an auger, less or more ; 
Wouldst thou thy hungry stomach fill? 
Thou knowest how — present thy bill. 

Thy debtor Hes asleep in bed, 
Now raise the cry of "blood or bread ! " 
The vengeful work is quickly through, 
Thou hast secured the balance due. 



268 M ISC ELL A NE O US. 

Revenge in hot pursuit may fly, 

Thy crooked paths to ramify ; 

To hunt thee through the viewless air, 

When where thou art, thou art not there. 

But here adown the sunny south, 
With Hps unchanged and chin and mouth, 
Thy virtues and thy numbers, too, 
Are much increased for such as you. 

Hast thou a bill here to present. 

You touch your cap, then take the scent; 

In honor thus the work begun. 

The way you push it, sure, is fun. 

Some call thee lazy ! Well, 't is true, 
A later hour or day will do. 
Breakfast at seven or eight or nine ; 
Not ready then — you wait and dine. 

If thou hast done mankind a ^vrong, 

Thou dost apologize, in song ; 

If satisfaction more demand 

You stand and take it, lance in hand. 

Through orange groves and garden flowers, 
O drowsy insect, pass thy hours ; 
For what there is of life to thee 
Is little more than just to be. 



MISCELLA NEO US. 2 69 

And is it all of life to me 

To live along, to simply be, — 

An aimless life, devoid of care. 

Respecting what and when and where ? 

To wake me up from slumbers long, 
Mosquito, is thy mission song ; 
To drill me in the good old way 
You sing as often as you prey. 

In north or south, in east or west, 
That life is longest, and is best, 
A Hfe like thine to business bent. 
So sure in aim. and deep intent. 



